Madness
by J.A. Carlton
Summary: A string of grisly attacks lead Sam and Dean to Pennsylvania where an unexpected incident leaves one barely alive and the other missing. Hurt!Sam, Hurt!Dean, in almost every way.
1. Chapter 1

Madness – Chapter 1 – spn fic

Madness – Chapter 1 – spn fic.

by: sifi.

Disclaimed.

Loved.

OOooOO

"B.P's 88 over 50 and falling... pulse is at 190 thready and fading fast. He lost a TON of blood."

Light stabbed him in the eyes one at a time sending shockwaves into his brain in spite of the fuzzy gray haze that looked like it was erasing the world. Some of that gray, the darker patches even seemed to be circling over head like vultures.

Sound rumbled somewhere in the distance, voices vibrating through him, maybe even through his very molecules. There was something sliding around behind the eraser marks in his vision and he thought maybe it was the world but for the moment he couldn't be sure.

Red suddenly spotted his vision and the rumbling noises took on tone. One of those tones was directed at him, _kinda close_.

_Sam... please find my brother... _

"What the hell did this? Did something escape from the zoo?" the ER attending demanded of the EMTs.

The eraser marks over the world grew darker and on his left a single constant note began to sound.

"He's crashing!"

OOooOO

"Mmm, unnnnh... pl...s," he pushed tremulously at the gloves his brother's blood had made over his arms, "D... nuh..." he couldn't breathe. Air didn't seem to want to move into or out of his body. He shook his head violently, sweat and blood soaked hair slapping against his head, it couldn't be true, it just couldn't.

His heart felt like it was going to explode it was beating so fast, his vision swam and he would've sworn flames were licking his whole body. He could even see the piercing lances of light as if someone was shining them into his own eyes. They hurt his brain.

His head wanted to explode, the pressure was blinding and deafening, and he could have sworn he could feel the sutures of his skull moving, trying to give his brain room to breathe.

His chest quivered and the breath stopped in his throat as the world blinked out of existence.

_DEAN!... what have I done?_

OOooOO

tbc.

please R&R.

Thanks.

sifi.


	2. Chapter 2

Madness – chpt 2.

by; sifi.

OOooOO

"Where is he?" Bobby asked leaping to his feet just as the doctor strode toward him.

"Mr. Harrison's up in the ICU," Bobby recognized a different version of the 'sharing and caring voice', "He's stable finally, it was pretty touch and go for a while there."

"What about Sam? Where's he?" the hunter asked.

"I'm sorry Mr. Singer, no one else was brought in."

"Has anyone else come in here asking about him?"

"No sir."

"Well that ain't right," he shook his head and scratched his beard, "What happened?" If Sam wasn't around there was a damn good reason for it. Course whatever it might be, none of the options sat well with Bobby. Not after everything they'd so recently been through.

The ER attending shook his head, "We're still not entirely sure. All we do know is that something vicious got to him, tore him up but good. He was almost completely bled out by the time he got here." He nodded upon seeing the older man's color drain down, "Once we got his volume back up though he stabilized fairly quickly. He's a very strong young man."

"Doc you don't know the half of it," Bobby nodded, "You're keeping him in the ICU just for safety's sake right?"

"I saw the scars Mr. Singer... I have an idea," he cocked his head to the side then nodded, "But yes, we're going to monitor him over night and see how he does. He's a long way from out of the woods just yet."

"Has he been conscious?"

The doctor with the gentle brown eyes looked down, "We almost lost him right after he arrived," he sighed, "he coded on us three times in the first fifteen minutes."

"Oh sweet Jesus..." Bobby gulped.

"At one point he actually did say something."

"What?"

"I think he said, 'save Sam,' but I can't be sure. The EMT's and the police are already combing the area he was found in, just in case."

"Oh hell," Bobby's eyes misted and his heart thumped heavily. His whole body seemed filled with lead, "Where was he picked up?"

"Sanders Park. Just a few miles down Hillcrest."

Bobby's voice shook, "Can I see him?"

"Of course. He's surrounded by a lot of machines but the most important thing is that he's breathing on his own and his internal injuries have been managed."

The doctor motioned down the hall walking slowly beside Bobby.

"You said he coded three times? And he was nearly bled out?... and something vicious got to him? What do you mean? Something bit him up? What?" he asked, his inner voice praying for John's boys.

"No one's really sure, could've been a cat or something came down from the hills, the zoo's checking their populations. The funny thing though is we couldn't find any bite marks, it was more like he was clawed, almost eviscerated but with an animal attack it's unheard of not to have bites in among the tears... especially if it was a matter of territoriality or if he somehow forced it to defend itself y'know?" he mused.

"Forced it to defend itself?" _What the hell were you boys hunting? _Bobby watched the doctor carefully, _he's holding something back._ "What is it doc?" he prodded.

He pursed his lips and sighed deeply, turning to face Bobby in the hallway just far enough from the room's entrance so he couldn't see Dean yet.

"Over in New Castle just a couple weeks ago there were some similar attacks but," he shook his head, "those were mostly club kids, tweakers y'know?"

Bobby nodded as the knot that started turning in his belly with the phone call that brought him here started reaching tendrils of twisty fear up toward his heart. "Those attacks were attributed to some new drug on the street." He swallowed hard.

"How'd you know that?"

"Internet news."

"Ahh," the doctor nodded, "Well yeah, something in the drug caused users to have psychotic breaks, there were some very feral attacks, and a few murders, some suicides, a couple murder suicide combo's... it was a very dark few weeks for New Castle."

"And you think because it stopped over there it might be starting here in Lawrence?" Bobby guessed.

The doctor's gentle browns looked into Bobby's blues, "We _are_ just a few miles away but good lord I hope not."

He turned and motioned to the room, "He's sedated but he should be able to hear you. Try not to get him excited."

Bobby nodded standing still, gathering his strength as the doctor walked back the way they'd come.

He stopped short at the sight of that vital thirty-one year old surrounded by enough machinery and padding to return him to all of about seven in Bobby's memory.

"Holy hell," he breathed pulling up a chair.

Both of Dean's arms were secured in padded splints, there were angry stitches at his temple that went into his hair line, his lip was split and his left eye, the same side as the stitches, was blackened closed. _His nose looks broken too,_ Bobby noticed.

Bandages peeked out from under the blankets over him, and Bobby found himself wondering if there was a patch of skin on the boy that hadn't been torn up in the last six weeks. _Jeez, he just got healed up all the way from that psycho-barbie bitch, well thanks to that pool and ... well, still he just got healed up_.

The ticking and faint occasional buzzing of the machinery in the room, the electrical hum of it all set the older hunter's nerves on edge as he rested his hand on the mattress.

"Boy I wish you could tell me what the hell happened, where's your brother? There's police out looking for him in case he's in trouble. I'm gonna head on over to your motel room and see what I can see. I promise ya'Dean, I'll find Sam." He took a shaky breath, "Laura's in India... I wish she was here. I know she could help. I haven't called her so you just better make damn sure you get yourself healed up you hear me?" he babbled.

A moment later he nodded and dropped his hand gently onto Dean's shoulder.

At his touch the eldest Winchester bucked, his eyes snapped open and breath screamed into his throat as the machinery went temporarily crazy. "Sammy!" he cried reaching out before collapsing back.

"Dean? Dean? Talk t'me boy..." Bobby leaned in as the young man panted heavily, his eyes fluttering between open and closed, his expression clearly confused and disoriented.

OOooOO

"Mm..nuhean."

"Shh."

_Hmm? _His eyes worked against the sleep holding them together. He drew a deep breath and felt weight in his body.

"Hmm?"

"Shhh," something moved over him, weight added to his own. Warmth, slickness, softness pressed against his length. Something tickled along his chest, down his belly. _Nekked?_

"Mm?" he could feel his brows knitting together, _s'not right..._

_Up, goin' up..._ space changed and something was slid between his lips.

"Here you go."

_Mmm woman's voice... who?_ Then cool wetness trickled into his mouth and his body remembered to swallow.

"Sleep. We'll go out soon."

_Mm Dean? Where'd he go? Mm he'll be back._ He lay back against something soft and warm not even sure if his eyes had opened at all. Maybe the orange and darkness was inside his head. _Something ... bad, Dean'll fix it._ Then the dark took him by the hand and led him away.

OOooOO

She watched his consciousness fade and smiled, her hands gliding over his body, stroking and seeking until his physiology responded.

She mounted him, her lips twisting as he tossed his head to the side and a throaty moan slipped from his mouth. Without his mind to interfere, his body did what it was designed to do, responding exactly as it should to her manipulations until his seed was spent and his manhood returned to rest.

Nodding she slid her lips down his chest and belly then took him into her mouth lapping up the flavor they made.

Savoring the last droplets, she stretched out beside him, her mouth at his ear as the waning day was replaced with burgeoning dark, "It's almost time to go hunting. You _want_ to hunt, you _want_ to kill... there are things that need killing out there and you're just the hunter to do it. Your prey can sense you, they feel you coming but you can feel them too. The pounding of the heart, the rushing of the blood, you can smell the fear and it drives you. Open your mind to it and find them one by one," she whispered. "Make them pay for your brother, make them _all_ pay."

OOooOO

All his senses were sharp, he was rested and refreshed. Dew drops darkened the toes of his boots as he crept close to the tree line through the grass.

Cackling laughter flapped through the tree branches, the scent of smoke hinting at a large bonfire not too far away. He could pick out three distinct voices, two older adults, one male one female and one younger female voice, perhaps a teenager. _Recruiting? _But something felt like it was chewing on the back of his thoughts, _what kind of dark thing are they doing?_ He moved quietly forward sticking to the deepest shadows, using trees and shrubs for cover just like he'd been taught. _I can almost feel dad at the end of the trail, or moving along side... cataloging my mistakes, counting them, racking them up, "You're careless Sam! You're gonna get yourself killed one day or worse yet, someone else! C'mon Sammy get with the program! This is the stuff that's gonna save your life one day, not some stupid English Lit class!" _

He stopped, his heart pounding in time with his head, cottony darkness stuffed between his ears and something heavy in his chest. His throat was tight and metallic, _stop it, shut up, shut up. You DON'T matter! You're NOT my ... you're NOT... Dean is more of a father than you EVER were! He LOVED me! He GAVE me EVERYTHING and he did it beCAUSE he LOVED ME for WHO I AM! You NEVER did!_

Air squeezed from his lungs and tree bark scratched his forehead, _Kill them, they're preying on your weakness they cloud your mind and feed on your pain. You have to HUNT them down, it's what you were raised to do! Think of your brother!_

As if in response, that soft certain voice he knew spoke from somewhere deep inside, _"Sammy... I'll find you Sam. I won't let you down."_

His head came up, water pooling under his eyes, "Dean?" all around him the night was clear and crisp, the song of crickets and cicadas spoke of life, "Dean?!" he pushed off the tree trunk turning back the way he'd come.

He reached forward, the image of his hands covered up to the elbows in blood flashing in his sight while somewhere his brother screamed.

"Dean!"

"Shhh, s'okay you'll be okay..." that voice spoke again as something cool and oddly slick slithered down his throat. "there you go, everything's going to be fine."

"Who are you?" he breathed once again feeling his brows knit together. "Where am I?" he asked taking in the rough hewn cave walls that seemed to be breathing in the reddish orange firelight. He pushed up against her hand, his gaze trailing down to those hard stony fingers and saw her flesh on his. "Where's my clothes?" he frowned, his head rolling lethargically as he looked for something to draw over himself.

"You left them over there," she smiled leaning in, her mouth so close, her breath hot and tantalizing.

"I...?" he shook his head watching the edges of the stony walls start to blur.

"Yes, you," she smiled easing him back down onto the layered animal hides. One hand slid behind his head, the other stroked and swirled over his chest.

Sweat beaded on his naked skin and his breath came short, "Who..." his hand dove into her shirt, his palm cupping her breast as he bucked up, wrapped his arm around her and drew her down, his mouth searching hungrily against hers.

"Yes..." he breathed spreading his legs as her hand slid between them, bringing him springing to full arousal. He grasped her by the shoulders and rolled driving her down against the skins while his hands tore at her clothes.

"Yes," he breathed again with the realization that she was naked beneath the tunic as he pushed it up over her hips and slid himself deftly into her. His mouth closed on her breast suckling like he was starving while his hips beat out their sultry rhythm until satisfaction took him prisoner. Finally he drew her into his arms, curling protectively around her as he lay back.

She turned in his embrace waggling the straw before his mouth.

His lips closed and he drank thirstily then fell back, spent.

"I dreamed about my father."

"He's gone now. You are your own man," she stroked his face and kissed his temple. "You have enemies to hunt."

"Mmm later," he sighed, consciousness slipping away as she leaned down once more lapping their essence from his root while he slept.

_All in due time,_ she thought nodding.

OOooOO

"Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaam!" He howled batting at the nurses and aides and doctors that were trying to restrain him, "No! NO Sam Don't! DON'T..." he panted, his focus briefly coming out of his head and back into the room. His eyes fell on Bobby, "Bobby?"

"Yeah son, it's me, I'm here."

Dean grabbed for him, "Bobby don't... it's in him, twisting him, knots. Making everything knots, it's got him," he writhed in pain shaking his head violently, "mind..." he gasped, "trying to get his mind... please."

"Where Dean?" Bobby's stricken expression kept hold of the hunter's focus, "Who's got him? And where?"

Dean rocked his head side to side, tears falling down his head as his expression trembled, "He's falling, its pulling him away... my boy..." he gasped pushing away at the others, his hand clasping the older mans', "my boy... please... save him Bobby..." his breathing tightened and the beeping of the heart monitor sped up to scary levels just before a nurse shot something into his I.V. line, "Save him..."

Even as his consciousness faded Bobby stood nodding, patting his hand, "I will son, I will I promise."

Once John's eldest was out again, Bobby half stumbled in shock to the closet where he sifted through the bag of personal effects until he came up with the motel room key.

"Where's his clothes?" he asked.

"The police have them, they're hoping to get some kind of indication of what did this to him," the RN explained over her shoulder while she gently peeled the dressing off his chest and stomach.

"Is this everything that was in his pockets or on his person?" he asked.

"Should be," she nodded distractedly, her ample backside obstructing his view of the boy, "Now please Mr. Singer..." she dismissed him then looked up at one of her co-workers, "Go get me a suture set."

Bobby moved to the woman's side, his eyes taking in the full extent of damage, _and I thought it was bad five weeks ago_ he winced at the almost palm leaf pattern of stitches that appeared to be barely holding angry oozing lines of flesh together, _good Lord boy,_ his gaze rolled upward, _can't you cut these boys a break? Please!? _He begged.

"When he wakes up, you tell him I went to find Sam."

Crimping half a sad smile at him she nodded, "I will."

Pinching his eyes dry Bobby made his way to the boys' motel room to see what he could see.

OOooOO

tbc.

Please R&R

Thanks.

sifi

At this time I have a tremendous favor to ask of all of you reading this.

I'm involved in a project with 1/3 of author proceeds earmarked for various Child Abuse Prevention charities, and VH1's Save The Music Foundation.

The following links are for my book called Broken. Y'all know what to do, just take the spaces out.

www. amazon . com / Broken-Originally-Title-Know-Enemy / dp / 1440407991 - for the Paperback (Kindle version also available on )

www. createspace. com / 3353260 Createspace for E-Book

uk. you tube . com / watch ? vkWpATBeIrkY

It is an unapologetic journey inside the psyche of a serial killer. (If you know my writing you have an idea of what to expect).

I also ask that you be kind enough to forward the links to anyone who enjoys a good thriller and explain that they'll be doing a wonderful deed in helping raise funds for these organizations.

Both links are on my homepage too.

Whatever any of you can and are willing to do it is deeply appreciated.

Thank You.

Sincerely,

J. A. Carlton (sifi)


	3. Chapter 3

Madness – chpt 3

Madness – chpt 3.

by: sifi.

OOooOO

"How're you feeling?" that soft feminine voice caught his attention at just about the same time as the cloth against his forehead did.

"Mm?" his head twitched to the side while he struggled to open his eyes.

"Easy now sweetheart you've had a rough couple days." She admonished slowly working the cloth over his eyes, helping loosen the sleep that had sealed them shut, "Here lemme give you a hand."

The coolness trickled soothing relief over his hot dry skin as slowly his eyelids allowed themselves to be worked open.

"Mm...appen?" the words stuck in his dry throat and he tried to push himself up.

"Easy Sam, you need to rest and recover. What do you remember?" She asked sliding a straw between his lips after she propped him up with an extra pillow.

He started to draw on the straw, _I remember drinking a lot of something that tasted like metal and felt like aloe juice_, then stopped.

"Who are you?" He asked taking in his surroundings. There was nothing familiar about the room he was in though it was clearly an apartment. He shook his head, _I thought... wasn't there a cave?_

"That's right, you won't remember this body. It's me Sam. It's Ruby."

"Ruby?" He scowled, "I thought Lilith sent you back to hell two years ago."

She scoffed, her pale brown hair shimmering with little bits of gold inside. _She sure as hell chose a nice body, wonder if she's still got that knife. _

"Two YEARS ago?" she groaned running her hand through that hair, "Jeez Sam what the hell did that Oni do to you? You'd think you tried to take on Lilith yourself."

He shook his head thoroughly confused as he sat up, looked under the blanket and sighed relief at the sight of underwear.

"Why'd you call me sweetheart?" He asked dipping his finger into the cup and tasting water.

"Isn't that what couples call each other?"

"Couples? Where's Kitsune?"

"Who?"

"Kitsune." He shook his head, "Typically they're either..."

"Yeah I _know_ what they are, either guardians, lovers OR wives depending on your needs," she sighed ducking her head and helped him swing his legs over the edge of the bed, "Sam, you've been unconscious for about three days, ever since that Oni sunk its claws into you. I thought I was going to lose you." She confessed.

"Oni? Yokai?" He asked as visions of Bobby's yard came to mind.

_That's where we divided up teams and figured out our strategy. Dean..._ "Where's Dean?" he lurched off the bed and promptly stumbled into her arms.

Frustration visible in her eyes and around her mouth she lowered him to the bed, "Where the hell is my brother?"

"Dean's _dead_ Sam. His deal came due six weeks ago, don't tell me you don't remember _that_."

Breath stuttered into his throat, "What? No," tears nearly exploded from his eyes, "No... she killed the crossroad demon," he shook his head, a vision of Dean being dragged from a table top onto the floor came to him. He shook his head again, "No! She trapped the demon in the host and let the igigi feed on it and the dogs... there were no dogs to command!" he hollered in spite of the memory of jetting blood and tethers of shredded skin that left his big brothers insides raw and vulnerable. "No," he whispered watching himself watch the light go out from the man who raised him. "Oh God..."

She huffed, "You cried like a baby then too," then sat back scrubbing her face, "Yes Sam. I'm sorry but yes." She nodded, "Besides you know that killing the crossroad demon wouldn't change anything, you tried it yourself. There's always another to take a fallen demons' place that's why we're _legion_." She explained shaking her head and frowned, "And _who_ _her_? And who the hell is Gigi?"

_Shhh_, something inside warned, "Huh? Uh, a... hunter, we went to the crossroad, we tracked the host's body into a warehouse. It was... sick," he shook his head.

"Oh yeah?" she spocked her eyebrow almost excited, "How? And how do you know it was a _she_ that did it?"

"Huh?" he thought for a moment about that night, "Oh the bartender said she heard two women fighting that morning." He wrinkled his nose then sniffed himself and grimaced.

"I'll go make some coffee and get some food together for you. You go take a shower." She directed.

"Uh?"

"Just across the hall." She stood and stroked his hair, "I'll fill you in once you're out."

He nodded, despair rolling off him in waves, "At least Dean got to see the Grand Canyon finally."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"His ashes, he wanted them scattered at the Grand Canyon."

She shook her head, "You didn't burn him."

"What?"

"You didn't burn him. You said you couldn't bear to," she smirked, "The last vestiges of your humanity I suppose," she seemed to mock, "You buried him in a salt plain." She turned out of the room, "Go take a shower Sam."

_This can't be real, none of this can be real, she saved Dean from that deal... we..._ _calendar, I need to see a calendar. Alright but go slow, if this is some kind djinn style game... I need to go slow Dean'll come. He'll come. He'll know and he'll come. And NO WAY am I in a 'relationship' with a DEMON! Well, Kitsune, but she's not really a demon, more of a shape-shifter... a good kind of shape-shifter. Boy wouldn't Dean just... but he knows, he assigned her to protect me._

Stabilizing himself against the walls he moved into the bathroom and did what he had to do.

OOooOO

Bobby sat back and raised the coffee cup to his lips. The light from the laptop shone eerily purple against the red of his beard while he got himself acquainted with the boys' most recent couple jobs, starting with New Castle since that was actually what led them down the road to Lawrence, Pennsylvania.

He read the news stories of the attacks. First it hit the club kids then there were the few murders and murder suicides that followed the explosion of a new drug onto the scene. And eventually he found what may have turned the boys on to the case in the first place. He came across an account by some slathering, foaming at the mouth tweaker who claimed not only congress with the devil himself, but swore that it crawled up inside him and used him to kill.

"Oh man," he continued sifting through copied and pasted news file, _thank God that boy is so organized,_ he thought as he came across another article from a few days later that told of the same boy's bizarre death. '"...looked like jelly." County Medical Examiner Isiah Henried said in relation to the state of the young man's brain tissue at the time of autopsy. Dr. Henried could not confirm whether or not the young man recently dubbed, 'Satan's Servant' by the media could have been held responsible for his actions considering the state of his physiology."

He leaned back and pulled his cell dialing Dean's doctor, Tim Brown.

"Dr. Brown? Bobby Singer, do you have a minute?" he continued to scroll slowly through the articles looking for more pieces to the puzzle, "Did you take pictures of Dean's wounds?"

He nodded, "Good, could you do me a favor and email them to Dr. Isiah Henried out of the New Castle County Coroner's office? I'm going to go talk with him about those club kids and see if I can figure out..." he smiled and nodded, "right. Exactly. Thank you doctor. How is he?" He scrubbed his face, "Good, that's good right?" He listened then closed his eyes and bit his lips, "You _tell_ him... I will _find_ Sam, I won't stop until I do." He nodded again, "Yep, yeah sure... will you tell him too, anything he can remember, no matter how small a detail... right, I need to know... pen and paper's fine. I'll be in to see him either later this afternoon or first thing in the morning. Right. Thanks doc."

He slid his phone closed and leaned back looking up at the ceiling, "Look after those boys. Please."

OOooOO

_Oh God, I wish I could wake up! Please somebody wake me up..._ his head rocked to the side and a tight sound staggered out into the room.

The visions playing in his mind were pieces to a jigsaw puzzle whose picture he couldn't fathom. Eye blinks of what he knew to be his reality fluttered and dashed, dancing with counterfeit moments, like dollar bills in a wind machine, except he had to be careful, something told him that to claim the wrong moments as his own would somehow mean disaster.

"_Till you get just a little bigger I want you to hold it with both hands." John motioned with his pocket knife then continued slicing his apple while Dean huffed. _

"_But dad that's how GIRLS do it." He spread his feet and made sure to unlock his knees raising the .45 up to eye level. _

"_And I know plenty of girls who can shoot a heckuvalot better than you. It's not about looking like John Wayne or Dirty Harry Dean, it's about hitting your target the first time out cause believe me boy, you don't hit what you're aiming at the first time, odds are you're not gonna get a second chance." _

_Dean squared his shoulders firmed up his stance and sighted along his right using the left for support just like dad said, "Yes sir." _

_Another memory fluttered by, once again taking place in Bobby's yard comfortable and well worn as it was. The memory was straw-yellow and autumn crisp. Behind him he could hear John's voice. _

"_Block, block, punch, reverse elbow, scissor hold, leg sweep, take down... HOLD!" _

_Then the interminable wait for judgment, "Good. Again. Sam this time you're on offense." _

"_Yes sir," Sam nodded and stood ready before his big brother. _

_John nodded. _

_Dean waited. _

_Sam waited. _

_John called out, "Block, sweep, block, punch, side kick, sweep, front snap, turning reverse, reverse, punch, take down!" _

_Again they waited for judgment. 'man we were like dogs waiting for a pat on the head.' He remembered. _

"_Good job boys," he tossed a bottle of water to Dean who let Sam drink first. "Gimme five laps around the yard and then showers before lunch. This afternoon I want more speed, more force, I want your BEST is that clear!" _

"_Yes sir." _

"_Yes sir." They chimed together. _

"_Good... go to it." John directed smiling his pride in his troops. _

_Grins flickered over both boys' faces before they took off around the yard in opposite directions, ready for playtime when they would each try to cross the other's position more than twice per lap. _

_Another moment caught his eye, this one was the one his heart had always dreaded as his little brother's unmistakable bony shoulder seemed to poke into the back of his arm. The motel room door slammed shut behind them and Sam's voice rang accusingly into the night air while in a closed pocket of light behind them, a t.v. screen exploded when a half full Jack Daniels bottle careened into it. _

_Dean felt his belly twitch and his insides cringed. _

"_Would it kill you to take MY side for once? You ALWAYS take his side Dean and I'm sick to death of it! Why can't you stand up for yourself? or it not for yourself then stand up for ME for once!" Sam half hollered half pleaded, "It's COLLEGE, I am NOT going to live my life like some goddamned hobo with delusions of grandeur and a fucking messiah complex!" He stormed around to face the man his big brother had become. The man whose every move, every intervention, every breath was an effort to save the four year old boy who on a cold November night sat outside his own father's arms, clinging to what he needed while those arms he wanted to be _within_ knew only his baby brother. _

'_He left me out that night, and every night since... Sam was all he ever saw, Sam was what mattered to him anymore after that night, the only reason I rated at all was because I was the watchdog.'_

"_I didn't deserve what he put on me! And I don't deserve to go to HELL!" the shotgun blast that followed startled him. The room, the greens and blues, the birds on the walls all came slapping back into the depths of his psyche. 'But I didn't did I? I never did go to hell... the deal got broke... the demon and the hounds were... She saved me didn't she?' He picked up his shirt looking for scar tissue in his side where for just a second he could've sworn there'd been a hook and chain. _

"_What's so wrong with wanting more out of this life than cheap motels, gas station microwave bean burritos and premature death by demon huh?" Sam continued, explaining himself for the umpteenth time. _

'_oh yeah... this is definitely the night he went away... I feel sick.'_

"_Hunting's in your blood Sam, it's what we were raised to do! To go into all the dark places other people won't go! To fight the bad things, to do what other people won't dare!" he hollered back, just as he had that night. _

"_Would you listen to yourself? You're not Don fucking Quixote Dean! And if you try to be you'll wind up the same damned way! Insane on your death bed except you won't be rambling about tilting at windmills, your windmills are gonna be ghosts and demons and poltergeists and all sorts of shit they LOCK PEOPLE UP OVER! And don't you come asking me to be your Sancho 'cause I won't watch you go down like that!" _

"_Actually I always figured you more for Dulcinea," Dean replied limply, the idea of his little brother anywhere but at his side left him feeling kinda weak. _

"_I have to go or I'm gonna miss my bus Dean." Sam slung his bag over his shoulder. _

"_You leave Sam, you're turning your back on this family, betraying everything we stand for, betraying Mom, and her memory!" the older brother snarled. _

'_that was dad's rhetoric... but I bought into it... lock, stock and barrel... I'm sorry Sammy, I should've stood up for you. I should've been strong enough.'_

_Sam shook his head, "No, I'm not. I'm HONORING her memory. No mother would want this life for her children Dean. Think about it. What mother would want her children risking their lives just to chase the things that go bump in the night? There's always going to be ghosts and werewolves and wraiths and rawheads and demons, the only way this can end is with both you and dad DEAD. I won't watch you both rush head first into hell. I can't!" He tried to explain, pleading with the only person who might one day understand, to try and do so now._

_Dean shook his head and bit his lips, "You never DID understand Sam. SOMEone has to fight the good fight, if not us... then who will?" _

"_Anyone BUT us! I don't care Dean, leave it to Bobby, or Pastor Jim, they have normal lives, lives outside of hunting, there's other ways to help people!" _

_Dean couldn't breathe. His chest was tight and his head burned on the inside and the out. He was about to lose his little brother. The only real constant in his life was about to walk out on him, leave him behind just like dad did every few days. Just like mom had done a whole little brother ago. 'I'm gonna be alone, he's leaving me. God knows he has a point, he's got a bunch of 'em even... but... please don't walk away from me Sammy...'_

"_Fine you ungrateful little shit, go hide your head in the sand and leave the work to us grown ups." He retaliated as much as he could. _

"_Dean..." Sam cringed inside almost able to feel his big brother's hurt. Dean didn't usually resort to personal insults unless he was in real pain. "Come with me. You'll love Sacramento, pretty girls, you can get a job at a garage, the classic cars out there are in awesome shape cause they don't get snow, no snow no salt, no salt no rust. You can have everything you want Dean, everything you deserve. A girl, a real apartment, a job, you can have a LIFE." _

_Sam had come close to convincing him and by God how he wanted it. God how he wanted everything he'd lost on that horrible night, home, stability, love. The acceptance his own father robbed him of as they sat there on the cold hood of the impala with John's arms closed around Sam, keeping Dean locked outside the warmth and security he craved. _

_But when he looked way down deep inside, he could no sooner abandon his dad than he could ever really give up hope that maybe one day the dad he once knew could somehow return. He needed to be there when that day came, John needed someone to bring him back home and Dean couldn't turn his back and let him make that walk alone. _

"_Just go Sam. Have fun, have a nice life... like the song says, 'go your own way'." He turned his back on the younger man unable to hold back the droplets but not willing to lay a deeper burden of guilt on him for them either. "If you ever need us, you know how to find us. Be safe Sam." he fairly whispered before disappearing into the bar attached to the diner. When he turned to look out the tiny window in the door Sam was gone. _

"MmmSammy," he moaned again.

OOooOO

tbc.

Please R&R.

Thanks.

sifi.


	4. Chapter 4

Madness – chpt 4.

by: sifi.

OOooOO

"I don't believe you."

"You think I'm lying?"

"Yep."

She shook her head and huffed, "I don't believe this. I save your ass YET AGAIN, nurse you back to health out of the goodness of my black little heart and you're standing there calling me a liar."

"Yeah, that's petty much it." He nodded checking his gun before sliding it into his satchel.

"You ungrateful little shit!" She cursed as his head snapped up and his eyes narrowed.

"Whatever you've done I'm pretty sure it hasn't been for anybody but yourself. Y'know we never did really talk about your motives did we? But I'll say one thing, Dean was right, you're a demon... and even in spite of the covens, the hex bags, the ass juice, the herbal masks to hide us from Lilith... you never could give a real reason WHY you were doing any of it..." he turned and glared towering over her, "It was a relief when she sent you back to hell Ruby. Why'd you bother to claw your way out instead of just running your crusade from inside huh?"

She shook her head, "I don't believe this, for six weeks we've been working together, and you're doing this _now_!" She scrubbed her face and glared right back at him as he shrugged into his coat, "We're _this _close to finding Lilith and you're walking away?" she snapped.

"Let _her _do some leg work for a change." he snipped.

"Sam this is bullshit! We've been going almost non-stop and now, when we're this close you turn tail and run? For WHAT?"

"I'm going to find Dean."

"Dean's DEAD!" she screamed.

"No He's NOT!" He stormed back.

"He's dead and gone Sam, pushing up daisies, worm food, playing poker with the big boys, six feet under, he's an ex-..." She sneered cruelly.

He grasped her by the shirt and slammed her back into the wall ending her taunting, "HE'S NOT DEAD!" he screamed furiously, "I'd know it."

Tossing her away like a splatter of bug guts on his hand he slung his bag over his shoulder and strode from the apartment leaving her panting darkly in the hallway.

Shaking her head she jogged to catch up to him, "I'm coming with you."

"I don't want you."

"Too bad," she slammed the car door and strapped herself in.

Sliding behind the wheel of the impala Sam almost felt normal for the first time since he'd woken up, except he should be in the passenger seat and it should be the only person on earth that he gave a damn about in the driver's seat.

"Do _not_ tell me we're taking this screaming metal deathtrap all the way there?" She eyed him angrily.

"You're welcome to hop out, or pop out or whatever it is you do."

She crossed her arms petulantly over her chest and settled back into the seat as he slid the gearshift from reverse to drive then glanced sidelong at her, "Oh by the way?"

She spocked her eyebrow at him.

"Don't talk about the car like that," then he turned the sleek beauty onto the road.

OOooOO

"Sam?" Dean whispered harshly reliving recent events in his dreams.

The dense mist muffled every sound but the most sinister ones, "Damnit," he cursed softly and continued on in what he hoped was the same direction he'd last seen Sam heading before this unnatural fog enveloped everything and separated them.

_This is just like the fog outside that club in New Castle, just before that kid went psycho and tried to get Sam. I really hope that shit didn't get into his system. What if it absorbs through the skin?_ It wasn't the first time in the last week he'd worried about that.

He thought back to New Castle and a tense conversation they'd had after that, 'hospital' incident. He still couldn't get the sight of his gentle-by-nature little brother wailing the tar out of that Joshua kid, out of his head or the fact that it looked like Sam was enjoying doing it. Then there was the fear, just an instant of it when he grabbed the younger man's arm and felt his steely corded muscles fighting his restraint. Sam _never_ completely let fly, but maybe for the first time in his life Dean knew he wasn't holding anything back. _That_ was what scared him even if for a fraction of a second. Sam could kill with his bare hands, they both could, John made sure of that and while _he_ often let himself go full out in a fight, Sam _never_ did until that moment.

"What's the matter with you Sam? You coulda killed that kid!" he asked nervously once they were back in their motel room.

To his utter shock the younger man simply shrugged, "Coulda. One more drug dealer out of the scene, so what?" He pointed at the door, "He's the one that tore up that poor kid, left him wandering the streets with his guts in his hands!"

"You don't know that Sam!"

"Oh come ON! It was in his eyes, you saw it just like I did!" He scoffed wiping the layers of sweat from around his neck.

"We don't DO _people_! We do monsters, and _evil_ things!"

"Well maybe we SHOULD!" he stood toe to toe with his big brother.

Dean shook his head, "Are you feeling okay? Did you drink some of that shit?"

Sam shook his head glaring angrily at the older man, "Y'know every time I voice an opinion You Don't Agree with, you ask if I'm okay, what? Are you _afraid _my inner demon's gonna come out and get you?" he mocked while doing 'spooky hands', "You afraid I'm gonna go evil? Get possessed again? Oh wait..." he pulled down the neck of his t-shirt exposing the seal tattooed on his chest, "That's right, must already be trapped inside."

"That's enough smartass," Dean's voice was low and warning, "You've already been exposed to that shit, we don't know if it can be absorbed through the skin, plus the whammy that Terry kid put on you at the hospital. You haven't been right since then, you've been hasty, violent, careless... it's Not Like You!"

A rustle caught his attention bringing him back to the moment.

_And now he goes disappearing into that same effed up mist, in a different town a few miles down the road. Who's hunting who I wonder?_ "That you Sammy?"

Something dark and possibly Sam-sized seemed almost to slither between a couple trees ahead. Part of the problem was that everything seemed more distorted the thicker the mist became. Sounds could be yards away or as close as his elbow, and they seemed to be swimming on the air currents.

The shadows appeared to be weaving in and out of existence, _like wraiths, god I hate those things._ A slick gel-like chill rode his spine with the thought. If there was one supernatural thing that gave him the heebie jeebies it was wraiths and the way they could disconnect a person from the sensation of their own body. It was like stumbling around with vital parts numbed out with Novocain.

The billowy bit of darkness whispered between hiding places too close for comfort, and he wheeled feeling it breeze past his ear.

"Sam?" he whisper shouted at the darkness.

"Dean?" Came a mocking echo in reply. He spun to the left peering deep into the mist, hoping to see movement. Coolness sluiced up his shirt just before a piercing pain struck just above his hip, moving into his body. As if he were pinned to the spot, all he could do was look down as a spray of blood jetted through the front of his shirts.

"Sam?" he felt dizzy, and the pain left him breathless. His hand clamped down over the hole as something raked his chest, feeling almost like one of those pronged gardening tools leaving burning, tearing, hot pain in its wake, only there was nothing there.

"Aaa..." he gasped shocked by the depth of the tearing sensation, _not again..._ he thought briefly as he felt that strange sensation of metal against bone.

He bent into the white heat, needing to protect himself as much as possible even as he turned trying to get his bearings, trying to figure out how to get out of there.

It felt like a tree hit him from behind, knocking him flat to the ground. Something grabbed him turning him on his back and pinned him down while blows pummeled everything that he couldn't cover. Face, arms, waist, legs, all the while blood flooded upwards through his clothes as the tender skin and protective layers of muscle suffered shredding by his invisible assailant. Then the fire flared in earnest.

It snarled and bit and dragged him along the ground, it clawed and cut and tore at him, until he had no idea how much time had passed or how close to his end he was.

He vaguely remembered a flash of night sky, black with sparkles in it, then something warm and strong closed around him.

_Ooh, there you are Sammy..._ he remembered thinking while fat teardrops rained down on his face.

Then there was nothing else to remember. For a while.

OOooOO

_Can't breathe, can't..._ he gasped clutching at his throat even before his eyes opened_...the hell? Where..._ but all he could see orangey glowing thickness.

He shook his head and waved his hands as stars pressed into the periphery of his vision, he needed to find whatever it was that was choking him. He rolled to the side and barked through clenched teeth as he tumbled over rocks that bit and tore at him. A sweet powdery scent lingered in the back of his throat, as information fell over him in waves. First and foremost, he was naked. Second it was possible he'd just fractured his arm landing on one of the rocks surrounding the pallet he'd been laying on.

Water or sweat dripped from his hair, splattering in small dark droplets onto the ground. Dirt clung to his skin and as he righted himself and looked down, blood ran from the tears down the length of his torso. Against his better judgment he swallowed and felt burning in his throat layered on top of a deep bruised feeling he was all too familiar with. He'd been choked often enough to know something had gotten its mitts on him.

_Dean? Where... oh God please be close by... please, _an explosion of rapid fire images flew into his brain, Dean in pain, falling, bleeding, screaming, breaking, and then suddenly close, suddenly in his blood covered arms, dying. _No!_ He shook his head examining the tears over his torso, _gotta bind that up and get the hell out of here... wherever here is... I gotta get to Dean..._ He couldn't see through this mist but as he reached around, trying to find his clothes it felt like a white hot needle shot into him just at the underside of the root of his penis. He doubled over but couldn't bite back the scream that refused to be silenced. The stabbing agony continued, growing deeper, stealing what little strength he'd been able to muster.

Sam tried to push himself to his hands and knees but it was as if a giant hand slapped him down to the ground. He lay panting, slowly consumed by the pain that wouldn't stop, that felt like there was a giant needle piercing his body, trying to force its way completely through him. The mist billowed and curled around him, almost like a living thing twining over and being breathed into his body, "Dean..." he gasped before whatever it was that was holding him grabbed a fist full of his hair and slammed his head into one of the rocks stealing his consciousness.

OOooOO

"If you're as smart as they say... you won't try _that_ again," she smirked watching the sweat and blood caked hunter panting on the ground. For a moment before she turned back to the task at hand, her expression faltered, the smirk turned down and the brows furrowed, but only for a second.

On the slab of stone beside the bubbling stewpot, she raised the mason jar frowning at the scant two inches of satin sheened viscous fluid in there. Leaning over the pot she stirred the gently boiling contents, took a taste and nodded then with a sigh held the jar up. Slowly she unhinged her jaw, allowing both four inch needle like fangs to emerge from their recesses in the roof of her mouth. The flexing of the muscle responsible for drawing them down was also what enabled the venom to flow but she'd been pushing very hard, very fast running her reserves dry, and it took more time than she had for her body to produce more venom.

Once she was milked almost dry yet again and the fangs were tucked securely against the upper rim of her jaw, she added the contents of the jar to the stewpot then turned and looked at the unconscious man on the floor. She knew who he was. _Everyone_ knew who he was and everyone knew what the master was doing to him, but she was afraid of what would become of those plans, which is why she'd dosed the older brother as well. She'd given him just enough to stabilize the connection between them, but if the master found out she knew she'd pray for a fate as gentle as the one that awaited the Winchester brothers.

At his side she rolled the young man onto his back and returned him to the pallet taking a quick inspection of his injuries. There was a dent and a bulbous darkening bruise in his forearm telling her he'd broken one of the bones in there and the break in the skin of his forehead, where she'd slammed his head against the rock was bleeding profusely.

Once he was situated again, she pressed her mouth to the gash in his head, drawing his blood hungrily into her, savoring the warm metallic taste and relishing the nourishment he was providing. When the cut ran dry and finally scabbed over she sighed, extended his broken arm and retrieved the jar angling it to catch his blood as she used her best weapons to pierce his vein taking the second of the three main components from him while infusing him with the last drops of venom she had, hoping to keep him under control until the master came back.

OOooOO

"Boy what the _hell_ do you think you're doin?" Bobby set the laptop down, finally making his presence known as the elder Winchester pulled himself upright with the bed railings. "You just lay your mangy ass back down."

"Bobby..." Dean collapsed back but held out his hand, "Help me out here."

"Like hell! Have you seen your nurse? She makes Buelah Ballbreaker look like Lassie!" He shook his head, eyes wide in mock apprehension.

"You have to find him, it's hurting him..." he groaned oblivious to Bobbys' attempt at humor.

"The police combed the park, I checked the morgues, the other hospitals... everywhere, I need something..."

"He's in a cave somewhere, he's trippin' Bobby, dosed up on pipeline," he frowned shaking his head, grimacing his agony, though exactly which wound was paining him the older hunter could only guess, "think I got a hit of it too..."

Bobby pulled his chair closer, frowning into the young mans' face, "You're not making sense Dean, talk t'me," then looked back at the computer, "Pipeline? That's the stuff the club kids were taking? And how d'you know he's in a cave? What is it with you boys and caves?" he asked feeling his belly crawling, hoping the young man was delirious. Sam's notes on the drug were scattered and scanty but there was enough there to remind Bobby of a couple years back when that kid used dream root on him and it took both Sam and Dean to save him.

He almost thought for a moment that Dean had drifted off to unconsciousness again, but his trembling lips and the deepening crows feet as he squeezed his eyes shut told the man that whatever this pain was, it was Sam's.

"I know he's in a cave Bobby," Dean breathed softly, "He's trippin' hard... bad trip. He's in pain, whatever's got him it's..." he shook his head, "it's using him and turning him."

"Dean," Bobby leaned forward, "Is this part of that whole Enki/Marduk thing you boys got goin' on 'cause I thought that was gone with the marauder out of the picture."

He tried to chuckle but his brothers' pain was too great. _I'm just glad he's not the one who's feeling it_. "This is something aaggh..." his arms crossed over his chest as he felt her claws sink into Sam's body, sinking into his chest and almost clamping into him for purchase, "Oh God... oh God...God it hurts..." he shook his head, "Something drew us here, something wanted him and now it's..." _raping him... can a female... yeah..._, "hurting him."

"Dean if you boys got dosed with this drug... I... what is it? Like the dream root?"

"Nuh," Dean shook his head, barely able to stand the onslaught of images and agonies. He wanted nothing more than to reach Sam's arms up, grab the little bitch that was riding him and break her damned neck! The only thing he was truly grateful for was that Sam didn't know what use was being made of his body, _wherever you are Sammy, stay there just a little longer...What IS that bitch? A succubus? Is Kitsune even still alive? She'd never allow this if there was a breath in her body._

"Dean?" Bobby's voice brought him back.

"No, it's real... not dreams...Oh GOD..." he grimaced drawing his legs up against the fire he could almost feel crackling between them that made him want to scream, "not dream walking... there's a bad side effect though."

"Yeah the psychosis?" _Or the jellied brains? Take your pick son._

"Yeah," Dean grunted, his expression twisting in agony, "Oh GOD stop...please..." he breathed as the bitch's voice whispered into Sam's ear, _'This is how it feels to kill... this is the joy you'll feel when you take your revenge for your brother.'_ was the last he heard as she forced the younger man's release, taking what was wanted.

Panting with the last vestiges of certainty that he'd just had a red hot poker shoved somewhere very private he tried to assure his little brother, "I'm not dead Sammy," his head rocked back and forth, "Don't you listen to that..." he gulped and groaned again as the pain receded just enough, "What do you want from him you BITCH!" he snarled, _Go buy a vibrator and leave my brother alone you sadistic whore._

"Dean?" Bobby's feather light touch brought his attention back to the room and out of his head.

"It wants him to kill... God Bobby..." his face crumbled in too many kinds of distress as he tried to pull himself upright again, "help me. Please." He half begged.

Nervous and frightened Bobby nodded, "I will Dean, I will. But I need you to help me okay? I need to know everything you know."

John's eldest took a deep breath and began at the beginning.

--

Pipeline – spn fic. – chpt 1

by: sifi

Disclaimed: That much is certain.

Loved: Well whaddya know? So is that.

OOooOO

New Castle, Pennsylvania.

Dean fixed his grip on the kid's jacket and picked him back up to eye level, not that his eyes were open.

"C'mon you little shit... Open those eyes or so help me god I'm gonna cut the fucking lids off!" he snarled in spite of the shiver that ran down his back. He never thought he'd be the one uttering that particular threat, in fact the memories that came with it made his balls shrink.

At least the threat got the kid to try and focus on him, "Where's Partyman?"

"Hmm, never know till y'know y'know..." his head rolled forward, his eyes closing and his wasted frame sagging in the foggy alley as a wave of white foamy saliva spilled over his bottom lip to tumble down his naked chest.

"Fuckin' tweaker..." Dean slid his arm around the kid who couldn't have been more than sixteen and started to walk him back into the club. An instant later he thought better of it and eased him to the ground patting down his pockets.

He came up with a handful of crumpled papers, a cell phone and a handful of slightly moist twenty dollar bills.

"Man I so do NOT want to know where this came from," he grumbled pocketing it all then ran inside where the bouncer sized him up hungrily.

Dean clapped the man on the shoulder, "No time for that now handsome, there's a kid outside looks like he needs an ambulance. Can't be more than sixteen..." he smiled, "Won't be good for business y'know?"

The bouncer grumbled but nodded his understanding and turned, then glanced back watching Dean walk out of the club and into the night.

Once outside he jogged toward the back of the building and the lonely little spotlight he'd need to look at the papers. There wasn't time to go back to the motel or even back to the hospital.

Unless he found this sick-o "Partyman" and got himself a sample of whatever that _other_ tweaker had shot into Sam he was gonna lose his little brother. And after everything they'd been through, no way in hell was he about to lose him to something as _ordinary_ as some designer street drug, even if it _was _supernatural in origin. _I knew I didn't like this gig._

OOooOO

Three Nights Before...

Sam wheeled, his elbow slamming into the face behind him before he completed the turn, grasped the kid's hand and started to turn it behind him, trying to get control of the writhing teen. What he lost track of was the kid's other hand holding onto a small glass bulb.

"Get off me!" the boy screamed trying to get the side of Sam's head but coming up short and punching him in the neck instead. The quick impact blurred the young hunter's vision and caught his breath in his throat just before he felt something trickle down his skin and into his collar.

"Oh great!" the boy screamed sounding like a spoiled child who'd just spilled his ice cream, "Look what you did! I'm gonna fuckin' kill you you big ape!" he snarled and summoned strength Sam never would've thought such a slight teen would have.

_Great he's high as a damned kite. Son of a bitch,_ Sam thought stepping back, watching the boy prepare to try and make a move.

OOooOO

The tall one straightened from his battle ready stance and cocked an eyebrow just before he felt the finger tap him on the shoulder.

The last thing he remembered was turning his head, then darkness.

OOooOO

"I'm guessing we're not gonna get anything out of him 'til he comes down," Dean frowned, "What do you think he's jacked on?"

"Hell if I know..." Sam shook his head frowning, "he was strong though, sudden mood swing... PCP?"

"PCP? That's a little old school for a kid this age don'cha think?" Dean asked, his eyes scanning the quickly bulging bruise on Sam's neck as he wiped it dry.

Dean stepped close grabbing his little brother by the chin and turning his head to the side looking for blood.

"I dunno," Sam shrugged submitting to inspection without a thought.

"What'd he hit you with? Did he cut you?"

Sam shook his head, "I don't think so." He motioned to the unconscious teen, "Considering his reaction, it was probably the last of his stash in that ball. Whatever it was it was liquid."

Dean nodded at the club, "Go inside and wash it off."

Sam looked at the faintly glistening vestiges of moisture on his fingers and raised it to his face, taking a tentative sniff.

"It's odorless."

"Try and taste it and I'll break your arm."

Sam rolled his eyes and smiled lightly, "Awwww and I was looking forward to a night off. You're no fun anymore," he shook his head, "be right back."

He didn't want to take a chance on accidentally rubbing his eyes or transferring whatever residue that might be left, to something he'd later eat so went into the club weaving his way through the gyrating throngs of gakked up kids, trying to shut out the bone jarring base line of club pop pounding the building.

Just as he reached the far side of the dance floor he felt strong small hands grab his hips from behind. The owner of the hands turned under his arm and beamed a glowing smile up into his face at the same time he turned to see who was grabbing him.

"You're beautiful." the kid, who couldn't have even been twenty yet, wrapped his arms around Sam's waist, "Dance with me?"

"Uh thanks... not right now..." Sam blushed smiling awkwardly, trying to pry the boy's arms off him while moving toward the restrooms.

_Is everybody stoned?_ He wondered finally disengaging himself from the kid and turning toward the back only to find himself facing several more young men, each of them with that same creepy plastic smile that suddenly had him thinking of clowns.

"What are you guys on?" he asked.

Six hands reached into pockets, each emerging with a glass ball similar to the one the other kid had crushed while punching him.

"It's Pipeline... it's new..." the first boy returned half glaring at the others as he wrapped his arms around the youngest Winchester again and rested his head against his chest while holding up the globe in offering, "Try some?"

Sam shook his head and once more started the process of extricating himself from the intoxicated teen, "What's it do?" he asked over the pounding he wasn't sure was coming from outside his head or inside it as the beat started to get to him.

He didn't know if it was because of the hit to his neck, or the music or the almost opaque smoke filled air but his head was starting to spin and his stomach was getting touchy too.

"This stuff makes x look like kiddy garten time... it's the pipeline, it's a direct line into your lover's head, it's better than sex..." he smiled goofily up at the newcomer, his finger starting to trail downward until Sam grasped the hand quickly, "... it joins you at the soul to whoever you want...I want you."

"No. I do."

"No, me..."

Sam shook his head, "Uh guys look, I'm flattered but..." he'd never been claustrophobic before, and this had started out uncomfortably enough, _I don't know how much longer I can handle getting man handled like this... literally..._ an image of the flirtatious old woman on the East coast and how thoroughly she'd pawed him made him frown tightly, _I can't figure which is worse..._ he admitted inside.

Another set of hands grabbed him as the rest of the boys moved in, closing around him, one of them slightly taller than the others and broader and obviously older, "No." he leaned in toward Sam breathing deeply as if taking a scent sample.

_Vampire?_ He wondered quickly, hoping things weren't about to get any more awkward. The last thing either he or Dean needed was to start a brawl with a bunch of tweakers in a gay club when all they were trying to figure out was if there was something supernatural happening here, or if it was just a new party drug hitting the streets.

"_I_ am the line... you're coming..." he smiled raising a tentative hand toward Sam's head, "Or at least you will be soon..." he grinned as the others started to disperse.

A familiar gleaming ruby flash caught Sam's eye, then caught the hand coming toward his head.

"No touchy what's mine." Dean warned this older man who was about the same size as him. He frowned at Sam, "I can't leave you alone for five minutes and you're already picking up half the joint?"

"I'll _never_ leave you alone... I'll be inside you..." the older arrival assured him while tapping the side of his head, "Here, with me... you'll never be alone... you'll be in the pipe with all of us."

"You wanna come?" the original boy who'd stopped Sam turned his attention to Dean smiling beatifically up into his face, "You're pretty too you can come be with the rest of us."

"Yeeeeah no thanks... appreciate the offer though," Dean nodded maneuvering his little brother behind him and toward the door as another handful of young men stood eerily still, watching them while everywhere else around them frenetic movement continued.

OOooOO

"Okay what're you waiting for?" Sam asked after about fifteen minutes of silent driving toward their motel.

"Whatd'ya mean?"

"The jokes, the snide comments about being a gay magnet..." Sam prompted.

Dean shook his head, "That wasn't funny. Not till this is over that wasn't funny Sam. You as a gay magnet..." he shrugged with his head, "well everybody knows gays got good taste. But whatever that was back there? That's freakin' stoner zombified on some kind of supernatural crack not funny."

"Hmm," Sam half smiled.

"What?"

The younger man shook his head, "Nothing just... I agree."

"I always knew you was a smaaat cookie. So what'd you find out?"

"Stuff's called pipeline, it's new, and it makes ecstasy look like 'kiddy garten' time. Apparently part of the high is the sense that it 'joins you at the soul' with whoever you choose." he divulged then frowned, "And that older guy?"

Dean spocked his eyebrow expectantly.

"He smelled me."

"Vampire y'think?" Dean frowned.

"I don't know."

Both men sat silent for a moment before Dean leaned over, never taking his eyes from the road and took a whiff in Sam's direction.

"Dude you stink..."

"If you say 'like sex' I'm tossing your skin mags." Sam warned.

"You wouldn't!"

"Bet me."

"I was gonna say like a cigarette factory."

"Oh," Sam pulled his shirt up to his nose and grimaced, "Eesh. Hey why do you still have those things anyway? Don't you get enough when Laura's around?"

"And when was the last time she was around? About three weeks ago yah?"

Sam thought for a moment then nodded.

"Besides," Dean continued, "A man has needs Sammy, that's something _that_ woman understands. Bread and water's tough to live on."

"Point," he capitulated, "I just thought after everything was said and done you know..."

"She's got her job to do just like we do."

"I know, I just thought things would I don't know... stabilize a little bit once _he_ was dead and everything was back to normal."

Dean slid the Impala into her spot right outside their room and put her in park smiling easily at his little brother, "This _is_ normal Sam. This is what we do and who we are."

Sam nodded, "Right. So we go chasing down some possibly demonic drug dealer who's NOT a vampire trying to build a new family, but instead is whipping up some chemical mojo that hooks people, then drives them to Shining-worthy homicidal rages before making 'em Cuckoo's Nest crazy and in what three cases so far? Suicidal."

Dean pursed his lips and did a quick mental calculation then nodded, "Mmm hmm, about like that."

OOooOO

Terry took Josh's hand. The older boy was a poor substitute for the tall beauty who'd stolen his heart with his mere presence but at least he was familiar, and he _wanted_ Terry. The problem was the Josh just didn't glow like the young man did. No one glowed anywhere near like that, all fiery and full of that warm pinkish-orange light that just shined right out of him.

_It's no wonder the gold one didn't wanna let go of him. I wouldn't either, _he thought, not even remotely distracted from his thoughts by Josh's hands and mouth working all over him.

"Stop thinking about him, you can't have him, you're not gonna get him," Josh purred turning Terry's head and capturing his lips.

"You wanted him too."

"Oh I'll get him, just you wait and see," he muttered sliding his hand into the younger man's pants.

"No you won't," Terry said pulling Josh's hand out of his drawers, "You know they're bound, you saw it... I know you felt it too... you never come out of the pipe anymore."

Josh grasped the boy by the waistband of his jeans and snarled thrusting his hand back down into his underwear, poking and scratching him carelessly along the way.

"Quit it Josh... not now..." he squeaked a harsh protest as that questing hand clamped on his tenderness squeezing violently all of a sudden as if he was trying to pop a balloon.

The pain stole his breath away. He opened his mouth to squeak again but the instant he drew air Josh's other hand closed on his throat squeezing him mercilessly in both places. Gasping, Terry turned his questioning eyes on his occasional lover fighting the crawling feeling in his belly that told him this was _not_ one of Josh's games.

When their eyes connected Terry realized that every moment he'd spent "in the pipe" up until this point had been nothing but an illusion. Sensation faded as his consciousness slid from his body into the gaping black vortices that Josh's pupils became.

Darkness surrounded him, amorphous bundles of varying shades of gray and red collided and somewhere in the distance the sound of something feral and rabid snarled and sniffed. Whatever it was, it was looking for him.

_What is this? This isn't the pipeline... Josh? Where am I? What's going on? JOSH! _he felt himself scream and couldn't seem to stop.

Burning heat closed on him, jagged claws and needle like teeth snagged at his skin tearing him open. With a last clear thought he realized he had to fight, or die.

OOooOO

Dean couldn't have said what exactly woke him up but figured it was probably the same thing that always had when Sam was young and for whatever reason couldn't sleep.

"Mmm?" he moaned shambling from the bathroom in his shorts to join his little brother on the couch.

Without taking his eyes off the computer screen Sam handed over his cup of coffee.

"Mmm," the older man sighed bringing the rich hot brew to his lips, barely able to focus on the screen with his eyes drooping steadily closed.

"It's not just the gay community, its high schoolers, college kids, teens and young adults all across the board. Community papers are putting out warnings about some of the side effects and perils of the use of 'street drugs', including legal penalties."

"Prffft," Dean scoffed tilting the cup to his mouth again.

"Exactly. Some of the police reports are saying how it used to be the kids would just run but now they're suddenly getting resistance and pretty surprising levels of violence."

"Mm?" Dean sipped again.

"Yeah, the cops figure there's a new drug on the market." He took the cup from Dean and took a swallow, "When it was x the kids would shag it or let the cops wrangle 'em home y'know? But according to..." he ran his finger down the screen looking for the name. "Sheriff Dexter Jefferies..."

"Mmm?" Dean asked.

"Yeah Dexter," he chuckled, "and before you ask, I'm fairly sure he's not the guy the show's based on," then took another long draught before handing it back to Dean, "Here, he says most of the kids are just as horny as when they're on x, but he's seeing more and more 'sudden mood reversals resulting in violent behavior'."

He sighed and looked at his brother, "He had the paper run a "checklist" for parents and it was posted it online too."

Dean's brows furrowed questioningly.

"Signs your kid may be doing drugs, and a list of all the places they've busted up raves in the area over the last few months."

"Mmm," Dean rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"Yeah. Just made our job that much harder if we have to wade through irate parents."

Dean sighed and shot the younger man a look he knew far too well.

"Yeah I know. Tomorrow we go back to the club and see if we can find out who's dealing that crap."

Dean took another swallow of coffee then handed the cup back to his little brother and leaned back into the corner of the couch, both eyebrows raised expectantly.

Sam drained the cup then leaned forward, minimizing a couple windows before he got to the next bit of his research.

"I haven't been able to find much so far on spells, potions, plants even, but there are a few of those that could be responsible for some of the effects that have been reported but not the biggie," he sighed leaning back, "For all we've got so far this could be some hybridized chemistry and nothing supernatural at all... I mean one of the effects of x is that whole, "feeling of being one" with everyone right? So... maybe it's something that's got x in it... whatever it is? Whoever created this stuff..." he slumped back frowning, "right now, I'm stumped." He admitted.

In his corner of the couch Dean nodded, his mouth turned down, "So what was the nightmare about?"

OOooOO

tbc.

Please R&R.

Thanks

sifi.

A/N - This is a literal fic within a fic. Just so's ya knows.


	5. Chapter 5

Madness – chpt 5.

Pipeline – chpt 2.

by: sifi.

OOooOO

"Apparently the cops picked him up stumbling around the streets around 3:30 this morning, the report said it looked like, "something wild clawed him up"," Sam explained as they headed toward the bank of elevators.

"But he didn't show up missing any organs or anything?" Dean asked, "No body cavities stuffed with maggots?"

"Not that was reported. But we both know that doesn't mean anything," Sam waited till the door closed before continuing, "Doc Benton's history, and if it was a werewolf he might've been just lucky enough to have gotten away, especially if he was jacked."

Dean nodded, "Yeah, the unusual strength," he nodded but couldn't shake the squirrelly feeling in his guts. "Or he and his boyfriend both coulda been jacked and the boyfriend coulda done it."

"Considering how many of 'em were on the stuff at the club it wouldn't be surprising." Sam nodded.

"There's a couple more things, scratch that, three things I'm really not liking about all this Sam," Dean started.

They stepped off the elevator and hung to the side Sam's expectant look waiting for his big brother's list.

"One, the stuff is supposed to bring out some kind of psychic connection and you've already had one close call with it. Two, you ARE psychic," Sam opened his mouth to protest but Dean held up his finger and continued, "And those kids were on you like flies on honey so what if this stuff really DOES open the right channels, at least enough for us _non_ spoon-bending types to be attracted to someone like you?"

"Someone like me?"

Dean turned watching a young woman in shorts and a halter walk by, appreciation spread his smile just before a sigh fluttered out into the air, "Yeah, psychic... look don't tell me you don't still have it okay we both know you do, you just don't use it, you don't open the channels for it and honestly I'm good with that... real good. Whatever _you_ want to do with it or not, I'm happy with," he finished once she was out of earshot.

He frowned and eyed his little brother, "Wow... is it me or did that sound really chick-ish?"

Sam patted his shoulder and twisted a wry smile at the older man, "Its okay, even butch boys can have their moments."

Dean shrugged, "Anyway, if this stuff really does somehow affect some kind of psychic connection and with the way those kids were drawn to you... that really did just put this job a whole lot closer to our kind of gig after all."

Sam nodded as they started walking slowly down the hall toward the kid's room, "Yeah... so what's number three?"

"That claws and jaws nightmare you had woke you up right around three thirty this morning right, right around the same time the kid was picked up wandering the streets with his guts in his hands."

Sam's expression fell, "I was hoping you'da forgot about that."

"I'm your brother it's my job to keep track of this stuff." Dean smiled clapping him on the shoulder.

Sam smiled but shook his head, "I didn't rub my eyes or eat anything until after I took a shower." He frowned.

Dean shrugged, "Let's just hope it was a contact high and nothing more. Course the only way we're gonna know for sure..."

"Is to talk to the kid."

"Right. What's his name again?"

"Terry Glickman."

Together they approached the room catching the eye of the doctor inside who nodded at them to wait, as if he was expecting them.

"Are you the narcotics detectives?" he asked closing the door a little behind him.

Dean shook his head as they flipped open their badges, "No. Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, you're expecting narcotics detectives?"

The doctor, a thin and nervous looking man stroked his chin while nodding absently, "Sheriff said he was going to send a couple detectives over." He seemed to snap back to himself and offer his hand to each of them, "I'm Doctor Indiri."

Dean pointed to himself first, "Agent Harrison," then to Sam, "Agent Fisher."

"That is Terry Glickman in there isn't it?" Sam asked.

The doctor nodded, barely glancing back at the room and definitely distracted.

"Is he conscious and cogent right now?" Sam asked.

Dr. Indiri sighed and slowly nodded, "About as much as we can expect him to be this soon."

"What do you mean?" Dean asked.

"This new thing the kids are taking... this 'pipeline'," he looked between them, "I mean I'm guessing that's what you're here about right?"

They nodded and he continued.

"Stuff's insidious, I've never seen anything like it. It bonds to the red cells and by the time it's absorbed and excreted synaptic alterations have already been made in the brain."

"It alters the synapses? Like actually physically alters them?" Dean asked.

The doctor who suddenly looked decidedly more haggard than he had at first glance nodded, "Yeah... what do you fellas know about the structure of the brain?"

"It's gray and the bits bounce when it splatters against a wall," Dean shocked both the doctor and Sam with his succinct response.

The wispy Indian seemed to step back and size him up, perhaps wondering how much he'd understand before he began, "Ooohkay... there are cells that send chemicals and there are cells that receive the chemicals and use them to create the electrical signals that keeps things going. What happens is two-fold. The senders dry out and shrivel up, and the receiving cells get flooded, get inflamed and eventually explode."

"Don't have to be a doctor to know that ain't good," Dean hissed.

"How does it cross the blood-brain barrier?" Sam asked grateful the man didn't see his big brother's 'I'm both surprised _and_ impressed', look.

"From what we've been able to determine, the drug molecules bind with the hemoglobin in the blood and actually becomes a gas that rides the oxygen molecules right on in."

"Have you called the CDC yet?" Sam asked rolling his head on his shoulders.

He shook his head, "Our lab just figured out the 'how', maybe NOW they'll decide to see this crap as a real threat."

"So you've called them before?" Dean asked.

He scrubbed his face, his hands rasping against his faint bristle, "Yeah, our first exposure to it was a group of clubbers that came in, about eight of 'em, soaking wet, soaked with blood, torn up to hell, they'd just started attacking each other, even attacked the cops that went in to bust it up," he shook his head, "three of 'em died within 24 hours."

"Was that the same three that committed suicide last week?" Dean asked.

Dr. Indiri shook his head, "No. Two of those were domestic disputes that turned murder suicide and the third one was a gas-mart holdup that went kinda... weird."

"So they didn't have anything to do with the drug then?" Dean asked.

"No one made the connection at first but once we realized the users were getting violent the M.E. went back and ran tests on those three and found the same pattern in their brain tissues."

"And the CDC didn't see this as a potential problem?"

"Initially, with the clubbers we couldn't give them a definitive cause of death, their injuries were too contributory,"

"And you didn't yet have reason to suspect the other three suicides were related at all." Sam nodded.

"Right," Dr. Indiri nodded and sighed, "Then by the time the samples we sent _were_ analyzed, they couldn't find anything."

"What do you mean they couldn't find anything?" Sam asked, "You sent closed samples? Blood in vacuum tubes, tissue samples in formaldehyde right?"

Again, Dean's shock was obvious, _how the hell is he knowing this stuff to ask it?_ He wondered.

"Of course," the doctor nodded.

Suddenly Sam nodded as well, "The chemical had basically, for lack of a better word, evaporated didn't it?"

"Yes, exactly. Needless to say the CDC was NOT happy."

"No, I'd imagine not," Sam nodded, "How long ago was the first appearance that you recall?"

"About two weeks ago. Then nothing for a few days, then just a couple more fights, none as big as the first one, but the violence was more intense, biting, clawing, skin flayed open," he nodded at the room door, "Much like Mr. Glickman."

"Tell us about his injuries," Dean urged.

OOooOO

"Hey Terry, how're you holding up?" Sam asked using his sharing and caring voice.

Dean watched the young man sit up and reach for his brother, like he was reaching for a crack-pipe. _I am soooo not liking this._

"You came for me," he breathed astonished, "I knew you would, I could feel your light coming closer, calling to me... you drew me here."

Sam shook his head, "The police brought you here, something, or someone attacked you this morning, do you remember that?"

Movement in the upper corner of the doorway caught Dean's eye but retreated quickly, _great, just what the kid needs, something chowing on his pain_, he thought noting that the creature was one of the gray ones that were let loose almost two years ago. _Why aren't there any of the others here to get rid of 'em?_ He wondered edging closer to the door and back out into the hall to see how many of them there were. He and Sam had grown so accustomed to seeing them that they both in a way, didn't really see them anymore.

"Can you tell me what happened Terry?" Sam's voice asked within the room.

"Your light drew me back... he, it, was trying to kill me but I saw your light," he held out his hand and wiggled his fingers whining in the back of his throat like a puppy in need of a pat.

"Who tried to kill you Terry?"

"I'll tell you," Terry nodded reaching for the youngest Winchester.

"Sam?" Dean called from the doorway.

"Yeah?" Sam turned his attention to his big brother, his eyes flicking up to the ceiling, following Dean's glance, "Wow..." he breathed watching the dark gray swirling mass that reminded him of the cloud of Lilith's followers they exorcised in that jail a couple years ago.

"This can't be good," Dean turned back.

"Yeah," Sam nodded as the boy's hand closed on his.

The last thing he heard for a long time was his own scream and Dean's voice calling his name.

OOooOO

"I didn't mean it I swear, I just, he wanted, I was just showing him," Terry tried once more to stand up and go to the other bed where Dean had, with the doctor's help placed Sam after he bounced from the wall to the floor.

"SIDDOWN!" Dean barked standing out of the way chewing on his thumb as Dr. Indiri shined a penlight into his little brother's eyes.

_C'mon, c'mon, c'mon SamMY... don't do this to me... Please Sam? C'mon be okay, wake up now..._ he couldn't stop himself from thinking.

At the bottom of the bed Sam's feet kicked then pressed down as his body bowed upward. From somewhere toward the head of the bed tight gagging grunts cut the air and Dean felt his stomach squeeze closed. Fearful sweat broke over him and his breath stopped in his throat, "Sam..." _God, I knew I didn't like this, I knew it! Son of a bitch! C'mon Sammy..._

Even with one of the nurses obstructing his view he could see his little brother's back bow upwards, every muscle of his body straining, the cords of his neck bulging out as he strained inside his own skin, and then Dean couldn't take it anymore.

"Sammy!" He lurched forward elbowing the nurse aside, and grabbed the younger man around the neck and shoulders. He held him briefly then lowered him back to the bed, his hands on either side of Sam's head, "I gotcha Sam, I gotcha," he soothed as the younger man almost instantly started to calm and his body settled back down to the bed, "Easy tiger, s'okay."

"Come on back now, its okay, I gotcha... c'mon now don't leave me hangin'," he nearly whispered shrugging off both the nurse and the doctor who tried to pull him from the young man he raised.

Sam's body settled back, his breathing started to level out before he bucked with one agonizing howl then seemed to snap like a rubber band back into himself and off the far side of the bed.

"Nuh... nuh...don't..." he gasped scrambling frantically into the corner curled tightly to himself, his head buried under his crossed arms.

Dean leaped over the bed colliding with Dr. Indiri and the nurse, both of them grabbing for him, trying to restrain him.

"BACK OFF!" he snarled crouching protectively around the younger man.

"Sam, Sammy?" he pulled the boy into him, his hands gently raising his head to look into his eyes, "Sam c'mon look at me," As soon as their eyes met he smiled, _"That's m'boy, talk t'me what did you see?"_ he could almost feel the look that moved between the nurse and doctor behind him as that strange slithery sound that had become their private language, moved into the room.

The young Winchester shook his head blinking hard, squeezing his eyes shut to clear his vision. Slowly the face of his brother supplanted the horror in his mind.

"_Dean? S'at really you?"_

"_Yeah, you gotta come out of this."_

Dean smiled gently sensing his brother's return and might have even admitted to being able to see that orange-pink fire light of his soul in the depths of his eyes.

"Dean?" he grunted clasping the older man's arm as he stood up.

It took a moment for Sam to hold himself up, "What did you do to me?" he asked the tearful boy curled with his knees against his chest and his breath hitching.

"Agent Fisher, we really need to check you out, take some x-rays, maybe do a cat-scan." Dr. Indiri tried to insist.

Sam shook his head, "I'm fine... really... just gotta get my balance back..."

"You asked me what happened... I didn't mean to hurt you... I'd never hurt you, I'm sorry," the boy cried as Dean sat Sam down.

The youngest Winchester hung his head pinching the bridge of his nose, his head being pounded into by daggers much like it had felt the first few times he had visions. Even the waking ones hadn't been as bad as the first few that had started with the dreams of Jess. In all the time that passed he'd forgotten the depth of that piercing pain.

"D, di, did you see?" he stammered.

Sam turned his head, his eyes communicating almost directly with Dean as he half covered his mouth, _"Get me out of here."_

Dean slung his little brother's arm over his shoulders and stood, levering the young man up beside him.

Dr. Indiri charged toward them, trying to block their passage from the room on one side while his nurse did the same on the other.

"He needs medical attention Agent Harrison! You can't just take him out of here!"

Slowly Sam started to hold up his own weight and though Dean continued to brace him as they headed toward the elevators, his head grew more clear.

The young hunter met the doctors' eyes, "S'okay doc."

Dean pounded on the elevator button.

"...dizziness, nausea, vomiting, anything like that... numbness anywhere, you get yourself right back here as soon as possible..." then turned to Dean, "He is not to be left alone under any circumstances do you understand me?"

"Don't worry," Dean nodded hauling Sam into the elevator with him, jabbing at the lobby button and wishing they were already out of there.

OOooOO

"Christ Dean pull over..." Sam squeezed out, already undoing the seatbelt while his brother maneuvered the impala quickly to the roadside, "Shit..." he stumbled out onto the gravel shoulder barely making it to the grass in time.

"I _HATE_ puking!" Sam snarled just before another wave hit, "I swear to god I'm gonna bitch-smack the crap outta that little shit!"

_Uh nuh,_ Dean shook his head against the butterflies in his belly. This kind of temper wasn't typical for his little brother.

"Alright easy there tough guy, my guess is that's the pipeline talking... looks like you copped another contact high... geez Sam..." he shook his head, holding his little brother tight around the waist as he heaved again.

"Bullshit! That little sonofabitch'n tweaker dosed me!"

"What?"

"You heard me!"

"Yeah I heard you, I just don't believe it came out of your mouth! Okay so _how _did he dose you?"

"I don't know! He just did! What're you taking _his _side now?"

"Don't make me make you walk back to the motel."

"Ungh shit..." the younger man groaned weakly.

"You wanna go back to the hospital?" Dean asked wondering just how big an effect this new contact high was going to have on his little brother, and if he was equipped to keep him safe from himself.

"Nuh... Sorry Dean..." he shook his head, his back hitching as if he was crying, "I'm so sorry, I never meant..." _any of this to happen _he stopped and sniffed hard, sucking it up in the Winchester way.

"S'okay Sam... let's get back to the motel huh?"

Slowly, groggily he nodded letting Dean haul him up. He couldn't have helped if he wanted to he realized with a shuddering breath, _what's happening to me?_

Cotton filled his head and he couldn't feel his limbs anymore. Amorphous darkness danced into his vision, "Dean..." he wasn't even sure if he spoke the name as the ground rushed up at him.

OOooOO

"Not particularly good Bobby, I don't know if it's _him _or if it's this crap." Dean scrubbed his hand through his hair.

"Yeah it's supposed to open psychic channels but... right so with that being the case, I need to know what to expect, I need to know what the effects might be on someone whose channels are already wide open."

He slugged back a swallow of coffee and frowned, "No! You know he doesn't. He's scared to death of letting himself start using it. We all know what happened to Azazel. Well he _was_ still loyal, and just trying to find the right vessel..." he stopped and shook his head, "I know it's kind of a moot point. Look, just find out anything you can about _anything_ that can block psychic abilities okay? If contact with this stuff is going to overload him I need to take steps to make sure that doesn't happen... I'm not gonna let his brain explode inside his own head you hear me?"

Breathing a sigh of relief he listened briefly before nodding, "Right, right... thanks Bobby. I'll be waiting... yeah, don't worry." He pocketed the phone and scrubbed his face again, sitting beside the bed and testing the ropes he'd bound his little brother to the frame with.

"I'll take care of you Sam, it's what I do." He promised but wasn't sure just how he was going to manage it.

OOooOO

tbc.

Please R&R.

Thanks.

sifi.

A/N

This http: / / www. fictionpress. com / u / 553137 / (y'all know just close up the spaces)

If you like my writing... and want to read something original I have posted the first chapter of my latest commercial project called Nick, Of Time (the first in my Heroes of the Line series).

I would love to hear what any of you have to say regarding the project. The first draft of the first book is almost done, forgive that this first chapter is still a rough draft.

You can also check it out on my blog on myspace:

http: / / www. myspace . com / simplysifi

I'd love to hear constructive criticism. But if not and you still want to check it out. I do hope you enjoy.

Oh yeah... just FYI when this one goes up for sale too... it's another one that will have 1/3 of its profits going primarily to the prevention of Child abuse, just like Broken. (just google, Broken + j. a. carlton and you'll find it)

Thank You.


	6. Chapter 6

Madness – chpt 6.

by: sifi

OOooOO

"Mmno... no... stop, Stop!" he tried to raise his hands, to push that weight off him as his senses started to clear and the sense that something was drastically wrong started to worm its way up into his chest from somewhere down below, "Don't..." his head pitched back and forth but the weight continued, grinding atop him.

"What's the matter baby? This not good for you?"

His eyes popped open taking in the pasty face above him, every part of him cringing at the sight... except one.

"Get off me!" he ground through clenched teeth pulling against the restraints around his wrists.

"Not yet my love."

"Stop it, stop this... please," he asked straining against his bindings.

She stopped and looked behind her but did not climb off him, "It's too soon."

_Oh god this is... why won't it... what the hell has she done to me? WHAT the hell IS she?_

From somewhere toward his feet on his left side footsteps moved over stony dirt covered earth and another female peered down at him, something about her head appearing both deeper than it should and somehow diamond like.

_S'probably whatever they've been doping me up with,_ "Please you don't have to do this," he muttered shaking his head.

The newly arrived female met eyes with the other one leaving Sam a moment to look down, afraid of what he'd see but still having to look. _Son of a bitch... I knew it, I feel like I'm on fire, and not in a good way,_ he grimaced and tried to hold back a cry of pain as the one riding him leaned to the side to listen to what the newcomer whispered.

"I have nothing left my lady."

Sam watched carefully, trying to ignore the burning pain racing back and forth through his nervous system as the thing atop him glanced back further, eyeing something on the fire. The second one shook her head, "Nowhere near ready."

"You know what to do." the one astride him said leaning forward. Cold clammy hands clamped on either side of his head, keeping him still as she/it stretched its body in two directions. He felt himself reach her body's limit, meeting resistance for a moment before she rocked her hips back and his head breeched the muscular ring of her cervix. At the instant she forced him through, impaling herself on Sam, his breath screamed out of his throat as the second female, her hand somewhere between the woman riding him and his manhood seemed to twitch and something stabbed deep into him, the pain shooting the length of his body until he was certain some silver spire had erupted through the top of his skull and making him gag in agony.

Her mouth closed over his drinking his pain and as she did it felt like something cottony was unfurling into him.

He was safe now, shrouded in the mist.

There were voices not too far away and the unmistakable rhythm of sex. He moved toward it, the mist staying ahead of him, keeping him safe from prying eyes. Night was all around him, nature's furniture glistening with misty droplets as he passed by, and like hot breath on a cold window, condensation clung to the bricks that made up a small tunnel on the path in the heart of the park.

_This way, in there..._ he continued forward the shapes of two men, one's chest pressed against the wall with his pants around his ankles, the other behind him bucking and penetrating, lost in the rapid approach of coital ecstasy as his hips pulsed with growing fervor.

_Uhm... I sooo don't want to see that..._ but he couldn't turn away, he couldn't avert his eyes and as frustration became anger, something that would eventually become rage began to flush through his system.

He could feel the men as if the mist that shrouded him was an extension of his own senses. He could feel his lips pull back over his teeth in a feral snarl as his senses moved over the dom.

"Grab him, tighter, tighter...make him _hurt_..." he goaded into the 'top's' ear. _"What're you doin' Sammy?"_ The man's hips missed a beat but quickly found their rhythm again.

He leaned down, watching fingertips sink deep into the bottom's hips.

"Use your nails... dig into him!" he instructed feeling something angry growing inside, _"hey calm down, take a breath Sam,"_ listening as the bottom's grunts grew higher in pitch, then began to whine. He was mesmerized by the sight of fingernails penetrating flesh, the tiny crescents of blood that were coming to the surface of the man's hips. He rose up and leaned forward once again.

"Tear the flesh." He ordered grinning. _"What?! No!"_

"Okay okay that's enough... ease off the grip buddy..." the bottom pulled away and turned around looking down at the half circles of blood on his hips, "Geez... you need to do something about those fingernails man..." he licked his fingers and rubbed the wounds, then wrapped his hand around his shaft, "I was _this _close too... shit." He leaned back caressing himself, his eyes hungrily roaming tonight's partner who stood before him with a very lupine grin on his face. "Least you could do is finish the job."

"Go ahead finish the job," Sam nodded. _"Sam stop it! This isn't you!"_ The youngest Winchester felt his own mouth spread in a joyful smile as the dom slinked toward the other man, his now flaccid meat tucked neatly back inside.

Sam leaned against the wall, his head cocked to the side as the dom pinned the other man to the wall and slid one hand down the submissive's chest. He couldn't turn away and most certainly couldn't stop the spectacle about to unfold before him, in fact the very spectacle he'd goaded into existence as the second hand grabbed a fist full of hair to hold the other man tightly to the bricks. When the kissing started Sam knew the show was just about to get entertaining.

"Oh God..." the sub groaned, his rod standing firm once more.

The dom slapped his hand away from the shaft then grasped it firmly himself.

Sam pushed away from the wall walking around them slowly, secure in the mist and faintly aware of the strange sensation when either of the men breathed some of it in. When he thought he had the perfect angle he leaned toward the dom again, "Shred him, taste his flesh..." he suggested, _"Quit it! Sam, stop this!"_ a scream split the night and the submissive's chest tore wide, the dom's fingers tearing through the flesh like butter.

As the dom passed into a frenzy of rage Sam's own began to cool. He turned away, the last sight in his eyes that of a man leaning over the open abdominal cavity of another, tearing out bits and chunks of meat with teeth and hands and gorging himself on it all.

OOooOO

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Sam screamed, once again pulling and straining against his bindings as the fiery orange glow and the dancing shadows against the rough hewn cave walls replaced the horrible vision burning on his brain.

"No... god no please..." he shook his head from side to side, tears running down his temples as the orangey glow faded and he found himself once more outside, rolling through a parking lot toward a scenic overlook where a white car sat with steamed windows and the soft mutterings of yet another couple in the throes of passion could be heard. "No, please no, please... don't do this please don't... whatever you want just don't hurt anyone else..." he pleaded.

That gravelly whispery female voice seemed to surround him and he wondered if she was being concealed from him by the mist just as his presence was being concealed from those he approached, "These two are for you. Think of your brother, think of what people like this have done to you and your family, taunting, flaunting, mocking, pursuing, persecuting, these are the very people that stole your brother from you that RIPPED him from this world. Let vengeance be your comfort!" she urged all around him.

_What? Dean? Dead? No._ But the image of his brother's torn and shredded body in his arms, his crystal green windowpane eyes without the glow of life inside of them, the heat that dissipated far too quickly into the air as his big brother, the one constant in his life lay dead in his blood covered arms, could not be shaken.

_People like THIS are the reason my brother is dead! People like THIS are the reason we could never rest! Son of a bitch!_ The fire of rage was re-ignited in his chest as he rolled forward toward the car and the lovers within.

OOooOO

"No Don't!" Dean screamed startling Bobby almost out of the chair, "No, no no no no, don't... oh God no..." he breathed fast and hard, sweat broke over him and he clutched the older hunter's hand, "Murder Bobby... another one, some gay kid torn apart in the park," he squeezed his eyes shut again as inside his mind the landscape shifted again, this time he felt like he was walking across a grassy look out point, moving toward a car with opaque steamed windows fueled by a rage of loss. He shook his head, _"No... I know that feeling, I know that hate... Sam Stop! Sammy! Don't do this!" _He tried to reach the younger man, "I'm NOT DEAD!" just as the car door was thrown open.

OOooOO

Pipeline – chpt 3.

by: sifi.

OOooOO

"Dean untie me. I'm not under the influence of the stuff anymore I promise." Sam strained but knew only reason was going to get him free. He didn't blame his big brother for restraining him. After all, he'd felt the red glowing rage tingeing the periphery of his mind and knew that somehow the kid had not just communicated his experience of the attack to him but the tail end of the effects as well.

"Not yet Sammy. Tell me what happened when Terry grabbed your hand."

The young hunter sighed glancing at each of his limbs tied one to a bed leg, _geez talk about feeling vulnerable, _an image of Dean near death, half naked in the woods, so still on the ground that scavengers had started to feed on him, crossed his mind. _Yeah, okay, no one on earth I trust more, I can wait and he does need to know._

"At least crack open a beer for me," he asked.

"That I can do," Dean smiled tilting a bottle to his little brother's mouth, "Ahhh reminds me of the good old days, 'cept the whole diaper changing thing... man..." he shuddered good naturedly then drank from his own bottle and sat back down beside the bed.

"Thanks," Sam sighed, "Well at least this isn't the weirdest thing to happen to us so," he shrugged.

"True. And you didn't chew a hole in your hand this time either so that's good."

Sam nodded with a wry smile, "Good point. Okay, so we saw the igigi hanging around in the hall... I wonder why they didn't come in to start feeding on him, you think they were deterred by us?" he asked.

Dean shrugged, "I don't know, been thinking about that myself."

"So okay Terry grabbed my hand," he shuddered, "It was like touching both clamps on a set of jumper cables."

"Dude, you just made a car care reference, who are you and what have you done with my brother?"

"Shudduuuuuhhhhp," Sam drawled.

Dean feigned a sniff and wiped away a non-existent tear, "Makes me so proud..."

"You wanna hear this or what?" Sam asked careful to keep the edge out of his voice.

"Yeah alright go."

"Like I said it was like this huge surge of power, maybe even kinda like getting hit by lightning or something..."

"Well the way you flew into the wall, I believe it... then you just dropped like a stone," Dean shook his head, "dude why us?"

Sam shook his head, "Cause we are who we are?" he shrugged wondering in spite of everything that they'd just been through if _everything_ in their lives was dictated by the truth of their origins or what.

Dean winced, "Too much to bother thinking about... okay so you got this big ass jolt of psychic feedback..."

"YES! Feedback! Exactly!" Sam nodded glad to have the sensation pinned down finally, "and I felt like I wasn't in my own skin, like my whole awareness was just... kinda... well this sounds weird... _inside_ Terry's experience. It was like I could feel the attack Dean."

"Did you see who did it? Was it his boyfriend?"

Sam half frowned.

"What?" Dean asked.

"I don't know. It depends on too many other factors what other drugs did he do? Was he tripping on more than just Pipeline?" he shook his head, "I saw... well," he sighed, "It was like..."

"Spit it out Sam."

"You remember Rosemary's Baby? The flash montage when she was all drugged up and it was supposedly Satan that was screwing her? Or you could see bits and pieces of him flashing through the husband's face?"

Dean nodded frowning, "Yeah like the eyebrow, the goat's eye, flashes of fire or brimstone or whatever it was." Sam nodded and he asked, "So it was like that?"

"Yeah only not some cheesy 70's fx man... it was like layers of reality shifting back and forth." His gaze hit the floor while Dean waited for him to finish, to say what he needed to, "I don't scare easy Dean."

"I know."

"It was terrifying." He admitted, "I couldn't get out."

The elder hunter weighed Sam's words carefully then asked, "You said your nightmare was like that too right?"

"Yeah." Sam nodded.

Dean sat back hard, his gaze hooked into his brothers, both of them thinking the same things and neither of them having to say a word.

After several long minutes Dean swigged from his beer and untied his little brother.

"I want you to hang outside in the car tonight Sam, I'm not gonna risk you having another run in with that crap."

"Don't be surprised if that Joshua guy is there again tonight... and be careful of him Dean, he was the one Terry went home with last night and he wasn't particularly happy when you got in his way."

"No touchy what's mine Sam; my guns, my car, my brother..." _son _"my boy, whatever fits at any given moment," he smirked, "... and not necessarily in that order," standing over his duffel bag, wondering what it would be safe to take with him beside the knife at his ankle.

Sam smiled, dropping a hand on the older mans' shoulder, "They grope too."

"Greaaat..." he shook his head with a sigh and looked at Sam, "And why couldn't this be going on around Hef's place? Huh? We never DID get to go there y'know."

"I'd never get you back out into the real world if we ever went there."

"What's wrong with that? I mean... look at what we get in the real world a bunch of octopodinous gay tweakers that are tearing each other apart with superhuman strength... all we get for reality Sam is blood and death dude... what's so great about that huh? Now bunnies..." he smiled, "soft in all the right places, hippity hoppity happiness... who wouldn't want to live it y'know?" he gazed up smiling peacefully, "Ahhh Hef, you're my hero dude..." he looked at Sam completely serious, "I wanna be just like him when I grow up."

Chuckling Sam snapped his fingers in front of his big brother's face a couple times, "Hey back to earth Dean... how's about we head out in that direction AFTER we finish this job okay? Get you hooked up with a nice little coyote ugly wannabe... hang out for a couple days have some fun..."

Dean turned a surprised eye on his little brother, "Don't tell me you're up to cruisin'... where's Kitsune?"

"The other side of the veil, Cernunnos asked for her help guarding one of the Tuatha De Dannan."

"Bless you."

"One of the Children of Danu," Sam explained.

"Danu huh? Isn't she some Celtic Goddess?" Dean asked.

Sam nodded and smiled, "Yeah pretty much the mother Goddess."

"Well then," the older hunter sighed, "it definite looks like we're _both_ on bread and water then," he held up his left hand flashing that bit of diamond like ruby colored metal that had actually been pinched off the sword Gader'el made.

Sam couldn't help but cock his eyebrow, he'd always knew in his heart that his brother would never be unfaithful to a woman he was involved with, but having confirmation of that belief was something that gave him an unusual amount of happiness.

"What do you mean _we_? I didn't make any vows..." Sam started to protest but just couldn't.

When Dean used the debt she believed she owed _him _and assigned Kitsune to protect Sam during their war with the marauder and his minions, he'd understood the necessity of her presence. Other than that he hadn't asked or presumed any level of intimacy with the Japanese demi-god, but on the eve of battle she'd come to him, selflessly giving and gently distracting him from all the possibilities before enticing him to rest. She'd barely spoken that night except to soothe. And after all was said and done, their battle ended, their allies returned to their lives, when Sam lay feeling the empty leaden weight of his loneliness she'd come again asking his permission to serve.

"_No Kitsune... not serve, share."_ He'd smiled opening his arms to her, grateful for the bright crisp taste of her smile against his mouth.

"Sure rub it in why don't cha," Dean shook his head then spocked his eyebrow at his brother, "Well technically neither did I... hmmm," but his smile spoke the truth as he shrugged, "meh... s'okay."

"Do you regret it?" Sam asked. He couldn't say he loved Kitsune, he couldn't bring himself to even admit that one day he might, but her quiet confidence and fierce loyalty had quickly earned her an esteemed place in his heart. One he was terrified of admitting could grow deeper _yeah, especially since every time I get emotionally attached to a woman she winds up dead... great... still..._ He smiled at the thought then noted his big brother's frown.

"Heeeeell no."

Sam smiled knowingly, "So what's the plan? You go in, get yourself groped a bit, make a buy and meet me at the car while I keep my eyes open for weirdness right?"

Dean turned abruptly, a thought side swiping him, "That kid... maybe even that Joshua kid too... they said they saw your light Sam," he frowned as Sam opened his mouth to say something, "I don't think they were being metaphorical I think they were being literal."

"Like the way Alex Bentley saw golden aura'd people?"

"Maybe," Dean nodded thoughtfully then met his brothers' eyes, "Sam, you and me, and okay so probably Laura and maybe Kitsune too... but other than them as far as we know NO ONE ELSE knows who lives within us..."

"You don't think that kid could really see," he started to ask flopping weakly into the chair beside his brother.

"I don't know... if this is supernatural in origin it's possible, I mean after everything we've seen it's at least possible."

"So?" he arched an eyebrow, "What then?"

"Well it's not me they want."

"You're not going alone Dean."

Slowly the older brother nodded, "Yeah, yeah I am... it's just up the street, keep your phone on," he handed Sam the keys to the car and checked his watch, "if I'm not back by 2... you know what to do."

Sam scowled but nodded, "If you can't make a buy in the first half hour I'll be surprised, those kids _wanted_ to share."

"Yeah well I'm gonna do a little digging too, see if I can trace the supply chain, get us away from the end users and up to the main supplier y'know?"

The youngest Winchester nodded again and checked his watch amazed that they'd blown the whole evening so quickly, "You've got just under two hours Dean, don't make me come looking for you."

Dean wrapped his hand around his little brother's neck at the shoulder and smiled, "Aww that's sweet, getting possessive already."

Sam slapped his hand away easily, "Alright alright, get going... jerk."

Dean chuckled at the door, "Be back soon bitch," then headed out into the night.

OOooOO

Sam checked his watch, got up and paced the room again, then returned to the computer, looking for anything he could find about anything that had an effect on psychic abilities. _It's only 1:30, there's time._

Behind him through the crack in the base of the door a rolling light gray mist slithered effortlessly into the room clinging to the floorboard while he worked.

Slowly it grew and rose until it stood in a column in a far corner of the room. Once it had gathered it self together, it moved forward just as Sam's head snapped up.

OOooOO

tbc.

Please R&R

Thank You.

sifi


	7. Chapter 7

Madness – chpt 7.

by: sifi

OOooOO

Dean worked hard to open his eyes against the drugs in his system. He couldn't tell Bobby everything he'd need to know to find Sam, it wasn't that he didn't trust the man, hell there was no one on earth that he trusted more. But with everything he'd seen and felt, it was too much to explain and it was too private. What those bitches did to his baby, and not just his body was unforgivable and Dean was gonna make damned sure they paid for it in spades.

_Just need me some clothes_. He rolled his head to the left afraid he'd see Bobby there watching him like a hawk when he should be out looking for Sam. To his surprise the chair was empty, the computer and the senior hunters' books were gone and there was a note on his bed table.

"Mm," he grunted slowly reaching for the note, feeling pulling at random places all over his chest and belly, _if I never need another stitch in my life I'll be so happy._ It seemed like it took forever just to raise his hand but when he did he realized just how useless he was going to be if he didn't get these damned drugs out of his system.

Slowly he rolled his head to the right tracing the line from his I.V. back to the metered dispenser. Making sure he only had the narcotics line he worked with agonizing slowness bending the plastic tubing and making a slipknot in it since that was the only way he could see to stop the flow. Unfortunately just a moment later, after he wedged a straw into the loop of the knot to make sure it couldn't be undone without intent, an alarm went off.

"Sssnumab..ch," he grunted as a nurse came running scowling curiously at him when she discovered his knot work.

"What'd you do this for?" she asked.

"Nohn't wannit... gotta fih...mmm...sss... ammy." He shook his head, "Noh dr..gs."

She undid the knot, pressed a couple buttons then turned and adjusted the cannula in his nose. "Agent Harrison, it's gonna take a couple hours for the sedatives to wear off, but I decreased the morphine dose to half and reprogrammed it so it doesn't automatically flow anymore okay? The trigger is right by your hand if you need it, use it."

_Sedated, son of a bitch! That explains why I feel like a bucket of lead._ His brows furrowed together and he nodded toward the chair.

"Agent Singer?"

He nodded and fought the drooping of his eyelids.

"He said he was going to go check the park," she leaned over and picked up the note he left for her young patient, "Dean, went to check the lead at the park. Stay in bed you idjit, I'll be back in the morning. Bobby." She watched her patient smile good naturedly and nod before his head started to rock back and forth and the smile grew pinched. His chin trembled and tears leaked from between his squeezed tight eyes.

She frowned softly and gently dried the tears with a kleenex. He gasped and seemed to collect himself though she knew from long years of experience much of his emotional release was because of the drugs, but she also knew his partner was missing and this one felt responsible for him.

"...s'm'brother... he's hurt." he tried to explain.

"Mr. Singer will find him and the police are still looking. You just rest," she urged dabbing the sweat from his forehead before he nodded and seemed to fade back out.

OOooOO

Bobby flashed his badge, "What happened?" he asked the man who appeared to be the lead detective on the scene.

"ATF?" He asked.

Bobby nodded, "It's drug related right?"

The detective nodded, "Should be DEA then shouldn't it?" he spat almost hostilely then shook his head, "It appears to be." he turned and stepped close to Bobby, "This is way too much like what happened in New Castle a few weeks ago."

"Yeah," he nodded, "We think the distributor got wind of us and moved out this way. We also think he has one of our agents hostage."

The detective rolled his head, "That's you guys?"

"Yeah."

"How's the other one? Did he make it?"

"He's in critical condition. They're not sure he's gonna make it," Bobby lied, "What've you got so far?" he asked gently, allowing the detective to lead him to the scene.

"Word is... it was the one who went missing that did it to him. Have your people considered he may not WANT to be found?" the detective asked and watched Bobby's jaw muscle jump and clench.

"Just so you know the word you got is wrong." Bobby tried not to growl. He needed this detective's cooperation but these were HIS boys the guy was talking about, and there was no way in hell Sam would have allowed any thing or anyone or been party to the kind of destruction that had almost done his big brother in.

What irritated him the most was that the detective was right. There'd been no evidence to suggest there was anyone else around when Dean was attacked, and Bobby knew, with his psychic abilities Sam wouldn't have had to lay a finger on his brother.

The detective nodded somberly taking measure of the man before him and knowing he was at the very least mentor to the other two, "If you say so," he nodded and pointed to the ground as they emerged onto the crime scene.

Bobby frowned expecting horror after what Dean told him he saw, but not this.

The one body was as he'd been told, torn length wise, eviscerated from his pubic bone up to his throat. His pants were down around his ankles and there were various bites and scratches on almost every visible part. He covered his mouth and eyed the detective who looked like he might never be able to regain his color.

"But _this_ one..." he shook his head pointing to the other body, his chest and abdomen flayed horizontally, as if he'd done it to himself, but those wounds weren't the cause of his death. There was a bulge in his throat and a shadow of something just behind his teeth.

"What the hell is that? Is that his tongue swollen up like that?" Bobby asked leaning forward and looking at the boy's blue face and the bright reddish circles around his eyes, _petechial hemorrhaging,_ "He asphyxiated."

"It's not his tongue that he choked on," the detective grimaced pointing back at the first body, "It's _his_ penis."

"Hoooleeeey shit," Bobby groaned standing straight up again, amazed that he hadn't blown chunks yet and looked at the detective. "Are there any caves around here?"

"Agent, this is Pennsylvania, there's mines, mine shafts and caves all over the place."

"Close by?"

"Some within just a few miles, you think whoever did this is holed up in a cave, or a mine?"

"I think it's reasonable to suspect that the drug that's causing these attacks may be being manufactured in a cave or a mine not far from town, but far enough to not be considered a viable place." Bobby explained carefully, "You wouldn't happen to have a topographical map laying around would you?"

The detective smirked, "I'll get you one. You want me to round up some of the guys..."

"No," Bobby shook his head, "It's a hunch, keep your people on the streets until there's reason to put them somewhere else. Have your folks got their hands on a sample of the drug yet?"

"Pipeline?"

"Yeah."

He shook his head, his gaze back on the two bodies, "No. We get near, the globes get shattered, once the shit hits the air it neutralizes pretty quickly afterwards."

"Anyone try buying it?" Bobby asked as a wispy, pasty faced uniformed officer handed him a small stack of maps. "Thanks."

"Yes sir," she nodded and slinked quickly away.

"We had one of our undercovers give it a shot." He nodded then ground his teeth, "We started finding pieces of his body three days after he went missing."

Bobby shook his head and sighed dropping a hand onto the detective's shoulder, "Don't be surprised if I come round to talk with you again..."

"Agent Singer," the detective called, "If you go spelunking caves and mines... make sure you get yourself outfitted proper... and you might wanna think about an automatic rifle just in case."

"Y'know I think I've got one of them in my trunk." He stuck his hand out, "Thanks."

As he watched the senior hunter move back across the park the detective was joined by his partner, "They gonna bring in some agents to get in the way?"

He shook his head, "Nope. This is personal for him."

OOooOO

Pipeline – chpt 4.

by: sifi.

OOooOO

He felt his hackles raise and rose out of his chair, moving quietly to his bag where he grabbed his gun and a canister of salt then sidled quickly toward the motel room door. Pressed tightly against the wall he angled his head just enough to peer out of the curtains looking for anyone close by, but the walkway was empty.

With long practiced efficiency he coated the window ledge with salt then crouched down to lay a half circle on the floor.

He could've sworn something brushed his neck as he leaned over to continue the line and he would have been right. What felt like claws gripped the back of his neck and slammed his head into the door leaving him reeling and barely conscious.

Whatever it was that had him rolled him onto his back and though his arms flailed trying to sweep it or clear that mist away, he couldn't help but breathe it in.

_I can't be possessed! I've got the seal..._ he thought in protest as the silvery fog continued to sail down his throat.

OOooOO

"...they try it." Joshua sneered.

Dean smirked and ducked his head, "Y'know I'm just as up for a good time as anyone, but I make it a rule not to get shit-faced without someone I know enough to _trust_ around."

"You'll be trusting me in no time, you and that sexy little boy toy of yours... how old is he anyway? 20? You like 'em young huh?"

"Y'know if you're not interested in selling, I'll find someone who is." He turned on his heel to go back into the club.

"Hey hey, easy there big guy, temper temper..." Josh dropped a hand onto Dean's shoulder, "I've got plenty to share, I just thought you might want to return the favor and share that honey of yours, you know... give us a taste of that bond you two have."

"Us?" Dean asked.

Josh nodded, rolling the fluid filled globe around in his hand, "Yeah me'n Terry, he'll be here soon, he's running late tonight."

"Terry?" Dean asked spocking his eyebrow at the kid, "Last name Glickman?"

"Uh huh."

"Yeah well I hate to break it to you pal, but your nelly little bottom's not going to be shakin' his 'groove thang' out on the dance floor any time soon." He nodded and watched as the young man's face began to change. His eyebrows furrowed, his jaw clenched and something in his eyes grew hard.

"What the hell are you talking about?" His tone took on a demanding edge.

"Well if I read my morning paper right today that's the kid the cops picked up stumbling down twenty second street around 3:30 yesterday morning with his guts spilling out into his hands."

"What?" he huffed.

_Could he really not know? Nah._ "C'mooooon," Dean drawled, "street savvy kid like you doesn't know what happened to his own boyfriend? Why don't I believe that?"

"Fuck you man!" Josh half snarled as the globe disappeared back into his pocket, "He walked out on me last night when I told him I'd be riding your candy man before he ever even looked at him."

Dean shook his head and felt his belly clench, it was getting late and if he didn't score either the drug or a contact tonight, he'd have to waste another day and that was a risk he didn't want to run. "I'm sorry man that was uncalled for." He apologized hoping to salvage the situation.

"You bet your ass it was," Josh nodded, his lips pursing and turning down as his anger turned to distress. _No, he... that was... it was just a nightmare. _A vague sense of a fight, Terry angry, a scream, something snarling and rage that sucked the oxygen out of the apartment then turned it into an inferno of hatred, _blood though, there WAS blood,_ unconsciously he ran his thumb nails under his other finger nails one by one while Dean held his gaze captive.

"I just don't see you as the kind to let go of someone very easily," Dean hedged noting the distress, noting the sweat that beaded and slid down the kid's face all of a sudden and the way his hands twitched digging under his fingernails the same way Dean did whenever he pulled himself out of a grave before salting and burning the remains, _ahh the simple days of yester-year..._

"Yeah well, I don't hafta hold 'em hard, they always want more." His focus seemed to return, "Is he alive?"

"Paper said he was picked up wandering so as of this morning yeah he was."

"Did it say what hospital they took him to?" Josh asked softly then took the globe out of his pocket and pressed his lips to it making sure to keep the fluid at the bottom before drawing a sharp breath.

Dean watched as a silvery mist rose from the fluid and with a second quick inhale was drawn into the kid's mouth right through the globe itself, _what the shit? some kind of semi-permeable membrane? It would explain how it breaks so easily. I gotta figure out what that shit IS!_

"No sorry man," Dean shook his head. He was just about to open his mouth and ask a question, suddenly feeling just a little queasy when the kid offered the sphere to him. With a questioning look he took the orb, noting everything he could about it from the weight to the texture to the temperature, "I've never seen anything like this. You just breathe it in?"

"Mmm hmm."

"How come it doesn't evaporate?"

Josh shrugged, "Doesn't last long enough... who knows?"

"What the hell kind of material is this, dude this is effed up right here..." he held it up to the light and might as well have been looking through water.

"First time you try it its a little weird. First draw makes the mist rise, the second one draws it into you. Hold it for a few seconds like with a joint... the rush is pretty instant, the connection takes a bit, but with you two..." he shook his head, "I envy what you two will share."

"Whaddya mean?" Dean asked then held it up, "How much you want for it?"

"Keep it man, shit's cheap I got more... just make sure you either cradle it like a pair of nuts, or apply the pressure evenly, if you squeeze it too hard..."

"It'll pop." Dean finished smiling wryly.

"Like a pair of nuts." Josh smirked.

"What can we expect?" Dean asked, "I heard something about kind of a 'soul' thing?"

Josh huffed and shook his head, "With the connection you two have? It's gonna be like you're inside each other's skin... you're gonna be able to feel what it's like to be yourself AND him... and if you guys can both get to the point where you're both ready to blow..."

Dean nodded quickly, "Okay okay! I get it... I get it..." he held up his hand to stop the guy, "it's THAT personal huh?"

"I never would've taken you for the bashful one."

"Just private, at least till I know how we're gonna react to it y'know?"

Josh nodded, "Well give it a shot tonight..." he took a stuttering breath and lurched at Dean, his hands clasping around his jacket. "There's a rave tomorrow..." he grunted as if he was in pain, "location'll be out...ungh..." he ducked breathing hard.

"Hey? Josh?" Dean grasped the kid's forearms, his heart pounding with uncertainty, _don't let this go sideways..._

_Shit,_ he thought as the kid's head turned, his bloodshot gaze rock hard, his grip unbreakable, his lips curled back over his teeth, saliva straining downward in ropy silver strands. "Easy there tiger, take a breath Josh... you don't wanna do something you're gonna regret here..." he grasped at the kid's forearms, trying to break his hold any way he could, "Dude you don't wanna do this..." he warned drawing his fist back for a punch only to find himself flying down the alley.

Every bone jarred as he hit the ground flat and went skidding even as the kid stalked toward him, just as feral as any werewolf, wendigo or shapeshifter he'd ever encountered. "No one comes between me and what I want do you understand me!" Josh snarled.

_He's talking about Sam, son of a bitch! _He tried to shake off the disorientation and push himself to his feet. "Well you're gonna be wrong about that this time." He was back on his feet and rolling out a kink as Josh closed in on him, both fists clasped and swinging like a bludgeon.

Dean felt himself bow backwards, then felt the kid grab his shirt and pull him forward again, slamming his head into his knee bursting stars behind his eyes leaving him grateful that his nose hadn't just been broken again.

"Wait! Josh!" he urged then with the unmistakable sound of bone and flesh colliding, but almost on a colossal scale that reminded him of Imdugud and Nergal impacting into each other in the underworld cave, found himself held up, toes barely on the ground in Sam's right hand while in his left Josh was held in a similar position.

"You alright?" Sam asked.

"Better..." he breathed and cracked an uncertain smile, "Thanks." Dean nodded in spite of his relief, unnerved that his little brother was literally holding him up and almost off the ground, "Uh dude..." then he was back on the ground, barely able to hold himself up against the wall, his eyes fixed on his little brother.

_Oh I know that look... that's not good._ "Sam..." he struggled to breathe and realized he might have a few bruised ribs. _Maaan not again!_ But Sam was occupied. _Damn good thing he's got those freakin' ape arms man._

He watched his little brother crack a sodapop punch to Josh's jaw, "You think you got what it takes you little punk?" Sam snarled still holding the kid with his left as he hit him again with his right.

"Easy Sam, he's tweaked man he's not in full control," Dean pushed himself upright, shaking off the last of the dizzy.

"Then it's a damned good thing I _am_ isn't it?" Sam retorted over his shoulder and popped the kid again, "Someone needs to smack the 'smack' outta you and tonight that's me." He stepped forward clocking the kid again.

Dean winced watching Josh's head snap back and circle around under Sam's iron-like fists. Even Dean had a hard time shaking off one of Sam's punches ever since the kid reached his full height a couple years back and had packed on an extra forty pounds in muscle, _damn good thing we're not paying those credit card bills or I'd never be able to stop hustling... wait that doesn't sound right... damnit Sam ease off... oh man..._ his heart skipped a beat and he frowned,_ don't tell me... do NOT tell me he got dosed again!?_

"Sam..." Dean dashed forward and grabbed his little brother's right arm. He was only moderately surprised when Sam dropped the kid and grasped him by the coat with both hands.

"What!"

Dean pointed at the barely conscious boy on the ground, his eyebrow was split, his nose was broken and it looked like his cheek bone might be too, "Did you get dosed again?"

Sam's expression was one of surprise, "How the hell would I get dosed again Dean?" he asked tossing the older man across the alley, leaving him to stumble back into the wall while the strange silvery mist that had filled their room wasn't even a memory.

"Son of a bitch... must be residual then..." Dean grunted patting Josh's pockets down till he came across his cell phone. He dialed 911 and returned it to his jacket, "Emergency services will triangulate the position, let's go."

Sam nodded grasping Dean by the back of the jacket to keep him steady on course as he veered off and almost hit a wall. "Good thing I walked."

Dean's head cleared quickly in the night air, _something's not right, _his suspicion was confirmed once they entered the motel room and he saw the lines of salt.

"Getting the heebie jeebies all on your lonesome here Sam?" he asked.

The younger man nodded, "Got this creepy ass feeling... figured better safe than sorry y'know."

_That's fair but still... _a flash of Josh's mangled face came back to mind and he shook his head.

"What's the matter with you Sam? You coulda killed that kid!" he asked frowning nervously.

To his utter shock the younger man simply shrugged, "Coulda. One more drug dealer out of the scene, so what?" He pointed at the door, "He's the one that tore up that poor kid, left him wandering the streets with his guts in his hands!"

"You don't _know_ that!" he argued despite being certain as well.

"Oh come ON! It was in his eyes, you saw it just like I did!" Sam scoffed wiping the layers of sweat from around his neck.

"We don't DO _people_! We do monsters, and _evil_ things!"

"Well maybe we SHOULD!" he stood toe to toe with his big brother.

Dean shook his head, "Are you feeling okay? Are you sure you didn't get hit with more of that shit?"

Sam shook his head glaring angrily at the older man, "Y'know every time I voice an opinion You Don't Agree with, you ask if I'm okay, what? Are you _afraid _my inner demon's gonna come out and get you?" he mocked while doing 'spooky hands', "You afraid I'm gonna go evil? Get possessed again? Oh wait..." he pulled down the neck of his t-shirt exposing the seal tattooed on his chest, "That's right, must already be trapped inside."

Dean nodded scowling angrily, "Alright. That's enough smartass," his voice was low and warning, "You've already been exposed to that shit, we don't know if it can be absorbed through the skin, plus the whammy that Terry kid put on you at the hospital. You haven't been right since then, you've been hasty, violent, careless... it's Not Like You!"

"Maybe it's some residual effect, I don't know, but y'know what Dean it saved your ass!" Sam reminded him as the older man leaned down peering deeply into the fridge.

As he set two beers on the counter, neither of them saw the column of mist move out into the center of the room behind Sam as he approached his big brother.

"We got any of that pizza left?" Dean asked as the mist seemed to unzip and fall to the floor to reveal a hooded figure.

It raised its hand toward the youngest Winchester and the mist rose up behind him. When it was as tall as he, that hand clasped quickly and the mist twined around his throat seconds before sliding into his mouth again.

Sam leaned forward, "In the ba..." he gasped as his mouth and nose seemed to fill with silver, laying within him like thick heavy southern delta air.

"Sam!" Dean wheeled around, his gun pointed at the figure that stood behind his brother with an arm clasped around his neck and a very large syringe in that hand, its needle sunken into an orb filled with Pipeline that was held in the other.

"Whatever you think you're gonna do, you're not going to have a chance before I put one of these between your eyes." Dean watched as Sam's skin turned bright pink, then red and his chest fought for air that couldn't get past the mist.

"Shoot me, he dies." The female voice explained emotionlessly.

When the syringe was full, her left hand squeezed the orb, bursting it, leaving behind no viable evidence as Sam fell to his knees, his hands working hard to pull her arm off him, but without success while his eyes pleaded with Dean for some kind of help.

When Sam turned blue, she bent him forward and slid the needle into his neck.

As soon as the syringe was empty Dean fired.

OOooOO

tbc.

Please R&R.

Thanks.

sifi.


	8. Chapter 8

Madness – chpt 8

Madness – chpt 8.

by: sifi.

OOooOO

Sam stood dumbfounded in the six foot deep hole and stared up at Ruby, "Where is he?"

"How the hell am I supposed to know? You're the one who spent the last month and a half trying to resurrect him...maybe something you did worked." She snapped back as he pulled himself up and grasped her by the shirt front.

"So help me God Ruby... if you did something to his body..." he growled his warning but she batted his hands off her.

"Relax. I wouldn't touch his body when he was alive and I'm sure as hell not gonna touch it when he's dead." She returned the snarl.

"You're gonna try and tell me that he dug himself out?"

She thrust her hip to the side and huffed, "You WERE trying to resurrect him Sam what makes you think it's so impossible?"

For this he had no answer, just a strange queasy feeling deep in his guts that told him this whole set up was completely and utterly wrong. _I wonder if this is how Dean felt back in Oregon... or was it Washington? Whatever... I wonder if this is how he felt when the multiverses started to bleed through... cause whatever _is_ going on here... it's just not right._

OOooOO

"He won't stay under for very much longer," _or LAST much longer for that matter,_ she told her master quietly as the youngest Winchester tossed his head to the side, lost in the hallucination brought on by her poison.

"I don't need him much longer. It's almost done."

"What do you want me to do with the body once you're finished?" she asked.

A dark smile twisted her master's mouth, the same kind of smile that sent shivers through her and haunted her darkest moments as she shrugged, "Whatever you want. Just leave enough behind so there can be no doubt as to who he was."

OOooOO

Bobby sat back and rubbed his eyes. Yawning he glanced at the clock and shoved the maps aside, exposing the open pages of one of his books. He glanced from the photo of the cave painting to his notes and groaned shaking his head.

"Of all the things it coulda been..." pulling his cell he scrolled down the list of names in his address book until "Idg" was highlighted. His thumb hovered over the send button, _do I really wanna call a demonic demi-god just to find out... and what if he's in on it? Mmm... no. I can't take that chance._ He closed the phone just as it rang.

"Yeah?"

"Bobby its Dean..." the voice on the other end sounded weary and vaguely disoriented, "I'm sorry... I knew but it just wouldn't come out... what it's... SHE's doing to him..."

"Dean slow down kid..." he could hear clothes rustling on the other end of the line, "What 'she' what...?"

"Succubus Bobby, it's a succubus that's got him but not just _any_ succubus..." he panted.

The senior hunter's blood ran cold and his heart hammered twice, "Lilith."

"Yeah..." he groaned, "She's in a different body, I couldn't get a look at the face, but this one's old enough for child bearing."

"Oh God..." Bobby slumped, his eyes closing while his lips moved in a quick silent prayer that John's firstborn was very very wrong. "Dean..."

"Yeah Bobby I know... but there's more... she's working with something else, something that's responsible for this drug, this Pipeline shit... it's got fangs, it bit him... it's the poison that's keeping him from being able to fight..."

"What do you think you're doing Agent Harrison? You're in no condition to be out of bed..." the nurse's voice came over the line.

"You gotta come get me out of here." Dean demanded softly as the sound of some hard plastic thing 'clanged' against the metal of the bed.

"What did you do! You're not supposed to...do you know what kind of damage you could've done to yourself..." she railed in the background.

"Relax nurse Ratchet I deflated the balloon... just be glad I clamped off the tube 'er you'd be standing in a puddle of liquid gold... _You_ try living with one of those things shoved up _your_ pee hole!"

Over the phone Bobby couldn't help but smirk as the nurse retreated from Dean's hospital room muttering angrily, "Don't go away mad just go away..." he said tiredly before turning the phone back to his mouth, "Probably just pissed off she didn't get t'see my junk again."

"Are you through singing your own praises?" Bobby half grumbled.

"Yeah... come pick me up... please we need to find out..."

"I think it's an Asag... at least I'm pretty sure... especially if it's working with Lilith."

"God Bobby..." Dean's voice faded on the other end, "this is all my fault... I should've... we should've just gone after her... I let us get distracted along the way. I should've just... been like Dad. As soon as Ruby told me about her involvement that night in the jail, from then on it should've been all about hunting the bitch down... and now she's got him..."

The elder hunter grabbed his notes and the book and headed out of the motel room toward his car, "It's not your fault Dean... there were a few other things that needed tending along the way y'know? A universe to keep from imploding..."

"Still... we should've gone after her the minute Nergal was put down... what's an Asag? Why does that sound like something that should make me more than a little nervous?" He asked as Bobby pressed the accelerator down.

"It's an Assyrian demon that causes sickness and death, its venom is said to cause 'bestial madness'." He explained.

"The homicidal rage."

"Exactly."

OOooOO

"I know what you're thinkin' kid... none of this is your fault." He assured the younger man now slouched beside him in the passenger seat.

"I should've told you as soon as I realized it was a succubus... it was the other one though that threw me..." his voice was soft, flat, and remorseful enough to make Bobby frown deeply, "the things they've been..." he shook his head, "the ways... they're... she..."

"S'gonna be alright Dean, we're gonna find him," an image of that pasty faced female cop came to mind, _that strangely deep skull just perfect for housing a set of retractable fangs,_ "thing of it is... we might be walking into a trap."

"What do you think she wants from him?" Dean asked. He'd heard what the older hunter said but couldn't cut through the turmoil in his belly.

"If it _is_ Lilith? She's _the first_ succubus... We know she can't kill Sam directly with her powers... maybe the only way she _can_ is to use him up."

"Most of 'em though..." Dean pinched the bridge of his nose, "God he's gonna be so humiliated... most of 'em use human men cause according to lore, male demons can't sire offspring y'know?"

Slowly and frowning deeply Bobby nodded, "With Sam's 'immunity' and both of their powers... an offspring would be hugely formidable." He shrugged and half frowned, "That's if demon genetics works at all similar to human."

"It's not _just _his immunity Bobby," _it's his whole line, it's who sleeps inside him. _Dean popped up straight, the sudden movement startling a bark of pain from him as he withdrew his cell phone, "We can't let this happen."

"Who're you calling?" Bobby asked.

"An old ally," he muttered scrolling down the list of names in his phone book.

OOooOO

Patna, India. Earlier that night.

The sound of something slithering over the dusty stone road in the quiet of the wee hours brought Laura to attention. Behind her in the two room apartment, her charge rested surrounded by sidhe and safe from those who were trying to kill the boy who would one day serve as Krishna's acolyte.

Along the ground dust swirled in an icy breeze and her hackles rose as she withdrew the blade Gader'el made for her. A streak of darkness raced at her, throwing her back into the wall and knocking the blade out of her hand. It had the feel of a hand only much bigger as it closed over her face and slammed her head into the bricks leaving her stunned on spaghetti-legs that suddenly refused to hold her up.

With her consciousness wavering the darkness shifted and writhed in the air until realization dawned, _Lilith! No please don't!_ Just before the demon's other hand pinched closed, the razor like talons came together and with a single thrust dove with deadly and explosive precision into her womb.

OOooOO

"Hello," he greeted, faintly inclining his head in deference while he paced slowly before the foot of her bed. "Yes, I know the Asag," he wheeled around and his eyes lit up as he glanced at Laura, "Really? Are you certain?" his grin grew sinister as he held up his finger. "My king if she's been there I will be able to tell you." He smiled brightly then noted her wide eyes and shake of the head, "I'll be there with the Southern winds." He assured then hung up.

"That was Dean? He's not to know anything about this Imdugud, do you understand me?" She ordered hotly.

Slowly he nodded knowing that only his King's command would override her instructions, "I will not volunteer anything."

It was as much of a promise as she was going to get considering the demi-god's first loyalty was to Enki and therefore Dean. Frowning she nodded, "What's going on? Is he okay? Is Sam?" She asked sitting up straight for a second before doubling over in agony.

The Assyrian bringer of pestilence sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, his eyes drawn to the obsidian charm around her neck, the same one he'd given her the instant he sensed she was carrying.

Because of his eternal war against Lamashtu _How did these humans ever get Lilith from Lamashtu I will NEVER understand_, he also had the dubious honor, in spite of having been created to do evil; to be the demi-god most called upon by pregnant women for the protection of their unborn children. It was a task he was glad to do in order to either keep his mortal enemy at bay or to get a chance to kill her. Usually she simply stayed away from those women under his protection. However, if what Dean told him was correct and if she was draining Sam, the attack on Laura made perfect sense. If her goal was to bear the next King of the Gods and do it from Sam's own seed, the last thing she would chance was a rival born of Enki's line. His offspring would always have first claim to the throne even over Marduk's.

"He thinks they've found her," he stated softly, "I will avenge this assassination." He assured and rose. With a lightning fast turn a column of hot desert air shot out the window before she could say or do a single thing.

OOooOO

Pipeline – chpt 5.

Even as the cordite cleared he knew he'd missed her. Somehow she disappeared a split second before he fired. But Dean had a feeling this wasn't the last he'd see of her.

"Sam?" he tucked the gun into the back of his jeans and knelt beside his brother just as Sam's belly gave a squeeze and a gelatinous glut of that silvery mist slopped out of his throat and onto the floor leaving the younger man heaving to catch his breath.

He nodded weakly, "M'okay... go!"

With a reassuring pat to his back, Dean headed out into the night.

Sam slowly pushed himself to his feet while the world spun out of control all around. The door stood open, a patch of black night just a little more clear than all the rest he could see. It was as if the walls had shimmered out of existence or out of phase with the rest of the world and as he reached for it he was certain he could walk right through them if he so desired.

He took another step, his knees buckling as what felt like a giant steel spike shot up through his head from the right side of his skull, just below his ear, and ending in the upper left side. He tried to breathe through it like he'd learned to do with the vision headaches but those were little more than an itch compared to this.

Even if he'd wanted to try to contain the scream that barreled out of him, it would have been impossible.

Dean slowed to a stop at the intersection, no trace of anything to lead him to the bitch that poisoned his brother. His skin pebbled in goose flesh and his hairs stood on end as an all too familiar alto voice rolled out into the night.

"Sam..." he breathed turning and racing full speed back to the room.

"No... no no no... Sammy?" on his knees he eased the younger man onto his back and pulled his cell phone, his fingers shaking so badly he could barely hit the right keys.

He quickly relayed their location to the operator and start wiping the blood from his little brother's face. Almost at that same moment, the boy he raised gave a series of hitching gasps and shudders that grew into a volley of convulsions. Seconds later he simply stopped and a single long sigh slid from his body.

"No! NO! SAM!" he barked laying the boy back down while his mind raced back in time to the night Jake left Sam to die in Dean's embrace, "No no no no no... not again no way..." he shook his head and after confirming there was no pulse, began chest compressions.

OOooOO

Dean could barely breathe as relief and fear tangoed through him, "... you're sure?"

Dr. Indiri nodded, "He's stable for now Agent Harrison, but you know as well as I do that he won't last long..."

"How long?" he demanded.

The doctor shrugged, "It's impossible to say, but so far he seems to be resisting some of the most destructive effects..."

"The exploding synapses?"

"Right, his MRI doesn't show any significant change at this point."

Dean pulled the globe from his pocket looking at the doctor whose eyes went wide with hope, "Your people can come up with an antidote to this shit right?"

Dr. Indiri held out his hand, "We just got a heckuva lot closer that's for sure... I'll take it to the lab..."

"Hold on," Dean shook his head and pressed his mouth to the membrane making sure the doctor was watching.

"What're you doing? Agent Harrison you can't..."

But it was too late, he'd drawn up the mist, and a split second later inhaled it, then handed the sphere to Dr. Indiri.

"If this shit really does what everyone says it does, he needs to know to hold on, he needs to know we're gonna save him."

Nodding his understanding, Dr. Indiri headed down the hall while Dean turned in the opposite direction.

Pulling up a chair beside his little brother, a horrible sense of dejavu raised his hackles. _This is almost as bad as looking at him laying dead in that cabin,_ he shook his head and scrubbed his face with his hands wondering when the drug would kick in.

"I'm here Sammy. Doc's got his people working on an antidote alright? So you just... keep on keepin' on little brother... we'll get you out of this... get you fixed up good as new huh?" he huffed, "I mean what fun's the bunny ranch gonna be if you're not there too right?" To his left, behind Sam one of the machines beeped drawing his attention to it, _holy shit..._ his eyes flicked to the indicator tag, _EEG, yeah that's the brain activity one, dude what's goin' on in there? And how come this crap isn't working on me yet?_ he wondered watching the row fill up with a huge bar of blue as if some manic child was frantically coloring.

_I should've taken another hit... just to be sure._ He shook his head and reached out laying his hand on the younger man's forearm. At the contact an explosion of orange-pink light rocked him back in the chair and seemed to burn the air from his lungs leaving him gasping.

"Holy shit..." he breathed looking around the room surprised and unnerved by the depth and multitude of the emotions that had just exploded into his awareness and were quickly becoming indecipherable from his own. "This can't be good for a person..." he shook his head hoping to dispel the sudden sensation of a spike being driven right behind his eye, "Shit..." he winced closing his eyes and leaning back in the chair hoping to wade through the morass to find his brother.

In a matter of heart beats their emotions became so tightly interwoven he could barely tell which of them was feeling what, and honestly it left him a little nauseous.

OOooOO

Sorry so short.

tbc.

Please R&R

Thanks.

sifi.


	9. Chapter 9

Pipeline – chpt 6.

by: sifi

OOooOO

Leaning back in the chair, anyone passing by would have presumed Dean was sleeping unless they looked closely enough to watch his eyebrows occasionally pinch together, or note the occasional tug at the corner of his mouth that tried to become a smile. There were moments when he really thought _he_ was dreaming, and moments when he _knew_ it was actually Sam. He couldn't have said why he was surprised that so many of his little brother's thoughts and dreams werebenign considering how big a stink he'd always made about how they'd grown up, but he was glad so many of them were nonetheless.

He found himself amused by some of the snippets of memory from some of their youthful adventures; Eight year old Sam sitting in a car beside a nice and very pretty teenage girl, then falling out into the night before dashing into the woods was one of them. Another was warm and seemed to smell like popcorn and cotton candy while his heart thumped hard and from a two year old Sam's perspective warm, strong arms came around him, holding him tight until John picked them both up with tear smudges on his cheeks and deep fear creasing his brows. _Oh yeah, I remember that... it was some dumb county fair and I wanted to ride a pony... ahhh the start of Sammy's clown-o-phobia... hee hee, served the little booger right for running off like that._

Spikes of pain came stabbing through his skull next along with blue-tinged flashes of memories of Sam's first few visions of Jessica on the ceiling. He came to realize just how responsible Sam felt he was for her murder and he could feel the warmth that soothed his little brother's heart with the memory of her. In seconds he was watching from inside the youngest Winchester the first time they kissed. _Dude, do NOT take me to the first time you two knocked knees... there are some things I don't need or want to see!_ He thought and a scant second later almost wished that was what he was seeing.

Instead he twisted, imprisoned once again in Sam's perspective as a rapid fire slide show made him want to hurl. Blood running out of Dean as Azazel tore him up on the inside, those yellow eyes peering out of their father's face. Quiet words spoken that left pain in his big brother's eyes. Igigi swarmed out of a corridor of blinding yellow light while in the distance some pretender wore his face and viciously beat his brother and Laura. His own image trying to drive his favorite blade into Dean's chest; Laura easing his pistol from his hands when all he had left inside was despair and the gentle care she gave them both; the taste of her lips on his on the Road To Dead before he opened the floodgates to the divinity within. _Dude you kissed my girl? And it got you hot? That's a little awkward. Boy's got good taste though... I'll give him that._

He shook his head and smiled as things began to change. Instead of a slide-show backdrop of multiple colors and locations things held steady for a moment as walls took shape and painted themselves cement sealant gray. _No._ His brows furrowed and he shook his head. _No not this... not with him here..._ "Sammy?! You're not allowed here!" He called turning around in the tiny room as a flimsy aluminum cot with a filthy two inch mattress came into focus. "Sam! Do you hear me!" He demanded as next a small rickety wooden table came into being, wedged against the wall, a Polaroid instant camera along with a few open film boxes and some developing shots sat on the pock marked top.

"No... no you don't..." he shook his head willing himself to close this down, to somehow escape this as he had seventeen years ago but as the wall filled up with photographs of faces he'd never forgotten he knew it was futile. "Hasn't this haunted me long ENOUGH?!"

"You'll never be able to let it go Dean, the best you can do is live with it just like you always have." Sam leaned in the corner and motioned to the pictures.

"Sam no... you have to get out of here..." the elder brother shook his head, moving in front of the younger man to block his view and pointed to the door, "I want you OUT of here do you understand me? This isn't for you!"

Sam pushed himself out of the corner, "I've seen the crime scene photos in the Lakeview P.D.'s database. I've read the reports and seen the pictures of the kids that were up on the wall. I saw the picture of him once they found him." He stood before his big brother, "I had a vision once of you burning a bunch of Polaroids... those were yours I take it. I told you I'd never ask you about it, I never have and I never will but you can't keep holding onto grief for something you couldn't have changed. Those kids he got to before you could NOT be saved. It's the ones that would have come AFTER you, IF you'd been any one else but who you are ... those are the ones you DID save and only GOD knows how many of them there would have been." He stepped forward and dropped a hand onto his big brother's shoulder, "Quit beating yourself up over something you had no control over and just be grateful for the lives you saved by killing the son of a bitch."

"I didn't want you to think less of me."

At the doorway Sam stopped and turned with a perplexed and still somehow bemused smile on his face, "You're my big brother. The one person I could always look up to... how could I think less of you for saving not just your own life but all the others you have through the years?" He shook his head and chuckled amused by the older man's curious and boyishly hopeful expression.

"What?" Dean asked.

"Sometimes you are truly 'thick as a brick' man," he shook his head and motioned out into the space beyond this little chamber of horrors, "C'mon let's go see..." he stumbled to a stop clutching his head and crouching deep.

"Sam? Sammy? What is it?" Dean asked at his side trying to shake away a gnawing sensation inside his head.

"My head... Gaaah Dean... it hurts..."

"You got dosed with Pipeline Sam... do you remember that?"

"Yeah... bitch stuck me in the neck. God Dean... please... help me..." he winced pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes and rocking back and forth.

"The doc's got the lab trying to come up with an antidote, you just gotta hang in there Sammy you gotta hang on for me okay?"

"Who's inside whose head Dean... if my synapses start exploding you could get caught in the cross fire..." he moaned breathing hard for a long minute as the wave seemed to pass leaving his mental image of himself shaky and sweating.

"I don't know but I'm not leaving you."

OOooOO

"The Ativan Doctor..." the nurse showed him the label, drew it up into the syringe and smoothly slid the needle into Dean's arm while Dr. Indiri made sure he didn't hurt himself.

"Go call MRI and see if they've got an opening, we need to make sure he's not hemorrhaging."

One of the nurses left while the other looked him in the eye, "Do you think this stuff could be doing what they say it does?" she asked.

"What? Some kind of psychic connection?" He seemed to scoff.

"He's been sitting here for hours looking like he's asleep except for the odd word here or there." She shrugged.

"Do you believe it?" he asked.

Slowly she nodded, "This isn't the first of these cases either of us have worked, we've both seen the same things."

He cast his eyes aside and nodded understanding full well what she was getting at. There was no explanation either of them could offer when they watched some of the kids, watching their chests rip open as if they were being clawed by some feral beast. There was no rational explanation for any of it which left only the irrational, and looking from Agent Fischer in the bed to Agent Harrison convulsing on the floor they both wondered if the same thing was going to happen to them.

With the push of chemistry through his system, Dean quickly settled and regained consciousness his eyes skirting over Dr. Indiri and a shift nurse he hadn't met yet.

"What happened?" he asked sitting up and slowly, with support from both of them getting back into the chair.

"You started seizing, I'd like to get you down to MRI to make sure you're not..."

"It's not me... it's him..." he frowned pushing himself to his feet.

"He's not seizing."

Dean shook his head, "No but... it's starting." He groaned as an image of taking a piece of paper flashed through his mind.

_He gave me something..._ he recalled and began searching his pockets for the flyer Josh had given him, the kind that kids picked up at the local CD store to find out where the raves were going to be each weekend.

Pulling it from his jacket pocket he unfolded the slip of lime colored paper and searched its contents for a moment before looking between the doctor and nurse present, "Either of you know the rave codes for around here?" he handed the paper over.

Perplexed they read the flyer and handed it back. "Son of a bitch..." Dean snarled glancing at the clock, "What time do the clubs close?"

"Most of them have a four a.m. license," Dr. Indiri offered and looked at the clock realizing it was too late.

"Course there's still..." the nurse started.

"Management," Dean nodded then looked from Sam to the doctor, "Any luck on that antidote?"

The wisp of a man shook his head, "Whatever it is the compound loses stability as soon as it hits air. Our in-house lab can't be set up like a vacuum, we have to send it out."

"Why is it breaking down?" he asked.

Dr. Indiri shrugged, "It has to be because of the processing, something done to raw material that causes its active ingredient to neutralize on contact with any of the given components..."

"And you haven't got anything?! Nothing?" Dean demanded noting the uncertainty in the man's features, "What?"

"Before the samples degraded we did notice some structural similarities but..." he shook his head.

"But what?" Dean asked, "C'mon doc!"

"Reptile venom. It has some similarities to reptile venom but that doesn't make sense." He shook his head.

"Reptile venom?" Dean frowned sighing, _great...well whatever it is it's square in the 'hunt' column,_ "It makes more sense than you know... do you have a broad spectrum antivenin?"

"Well yes of course we do..."

He nodded at Sam, "Give it to him."

"Agent that might not be the wisest thing..."

"He's MY responsibility Doc... just do it... maybe it'll keep his brains from exploding long enough for me to find... something..." he turned and leaned over his little brother, "hold on Sammy, I'll be back soon."

"Agent," Dr. Indiri blocked his path, "This stuff is like nothing we've ever encountered before, a broad spectrum antivenin, if it does anything at all... is still just a stop-gap measure."

"Key word being 'stop'," he looked back at Sam wondering if he'd been that pale even after he died, _I don't think so..._ "You do EVERYTHING in your power do you understand me?"

The doctor nodded and motioned to his nurse, "Don't be gone too long Agent Harrison, not if you want a chance to say goodbye while he still knows who you are."

_There isn't time for this...I need to find the source of this shit._ Dean nodded feeling his teeth grinding as he darted out of the room and down the hall.

OOooOO

Madness – chpt 9

by: sifi.

OOooOO

"Dean you should go wait in the car, you're not fit for this kind of terrain." Bobby frowned, picking his way carefully down the gravelly slope into a shallow dry streamlet. Still, he knew the young man wouldn't be convinced to turn back under any circumstances.

A single glance from the eldest of John's sons was all the confirmation it took.

_At least he's using the pole, I gotta be grateful for that._ He knew the hiking pole would help keep Dean stable on his feet and stave off fatigue while still allowing him to wield the shotgun quickly if need be. He was glad the outfitter in town suggested them.

"Are you sure it's such a good idea asking _him_ for help?" Bobby asked.

Dean slowed to a halt, his breath coming hard as he leaned a bit on the pole and nodded, trying to swallow down the nausea that crashed over him in waves. With every breath the sutured ends of flesh shifted against one another feeling alternately like tacky raw meat almost able to squeak together or rubbing against fork tines buried in the layers.

"He wants to kill her," _I can almost feel his blood lust for her_, "and I want her dead."

"Dean, he's _evil_ it's what he was created for, you can't trust him."

A searing hot tear ripped through the young man's belly, leaning him over with an agonized groan, "Oh god..." he panted as Bobby crouched at his side.

"What is it?"

Dean shook his head, "Claws... like talons... god..." he ground his teeth together and his eyes squeezed shut, "Get your goddamned hands off him!" he warned tightly, buckling over his knees, his attention completely diverted as his breath hitched several times before a blood curdling scream sent shivers through Bobby and John's eldest collapsed into unconsciousness.

"Dean!" Bobby called lowering the young man gently to the ground, "Dean..." he sighed wincing as debris, dirt and leaves rose in an arid dervish all around him.

"My king...?" Imdugud emerged from the searing wind and crouched at his side then glanced at Bobby, "Show me where you think they are."

"Has she been here?" Bobby asked opening the map on the ground.

"She's been all over this valley and she IS pregnant." The Assyrian nodded solemnly, "I can smell it."

"Then she's close to killing Sam." Bobby breathed.

Imdugud nodded glancing from Dean's unconscious form back up to the elder hunter's eyes, "She has what she wants, an heir with unbelievable power," he chewed his lip for a moment then once again taking in the sight of his King's host smirked glad for this unanticipated loophole, "Last night she attacked the queen."

"What?! Laura?" Bobby asked.

Imdugud nodded, "The mother survived."

"Mother..." he breathed fighting a rush of what should have been joy, but was crushed even before it could bloom, "She's pregnant?" he asked.

"Was." Imdugud nodded frowning, "Lilith assassinated the child. I have sworn vengeance on the queen's behalf." He stood tall as did Bobby and scanned the area after another glance at the map, "She made me promise not to tell him." He indicated Dean.

Bobby huffed and shook his head unsure which was worse; that she'd try to hide such a thing from Dean or that she'd trust an evil-born demi-god to keep such a secret or that he'd gone ahead and betrayed her trust by so easily telling Bobby who now had the burden of choosing whether or not to tell Dean and break the boy's heart.

Just as he opened his mouth to ask what the Assyrian was able to sense, Imdugud's head snapped around and his eyes bulged wide. In a split second he turned with a gust of hot air and was gone in the direction Bobby had indicated on the map. "Shit." He bent down slapping Dean's face gently until he snapped back to consciousness. "C'mon Dean, we gotta go."

OOooOO

A wave of vertigo battered Sam to the side leaving him stumbling, doubled over as images flashed through his mind and a strange sensation of disconnection began to unfurl its leaves inside. _This isn't right... why does it hurt so much?_ orange light suffused his vision and pain seared through his body. His chest was on fire, the skin itself burning as if he'd rolled in brambles and there was a stabbing sensation in his groin that he was finding it increasingly difficult to keep from screaming about.

A flash of a malicious grin strobed into his awareness followed quickly by the sensation that there was another there as well, _that's where I am, please help me..._ he looked around at the flat craggy salt plain and the sparse patches of adapted scrub, _this isn't real._ Then he looked at Ruby who seemed to shimmer in the heat as she edged closer to him and motioned him silent.

"I have saved you but you must do as I say." She warned softly, "Scream as if your life depends on it then when there's no more, lay still."

_Scream? As if my life depends on it? Easy 'nuff...Oh God..._ he tried to fight the thousand agonies. He let them roil and churn just beneath his surface until he couldn't hold it any longer.

The cry that tore from the opening in the earth, out into the rolling hills of the valley and shared his pain with all who could hear, demanded a moment of silence from every living thing.

Inside the cave the woman astride him threw back her head and laughed while his body gasped then lay still barely able to draw breath.

After climbing down she stood beside the blood soaked, hide covered slab on which he lay, her sharpened nails raking what little of his skin remained in tact while she watched his manhood fall. Grinning she leaned over grasping that bit of flesh in her hand and drew it between her lips tasting the two of them together on him, drawing deep on every last droplet until she was certain he had nothing left.

Her eyes flicked to the Asag at the foot of the pallet and she smiled a toothy malicious grin around the man's root.

"Nnnn..." he tossed his head to the side, his arms struggling feebly against the ropes that bound him while his legs tried to kick.

The succubus twined him in her fingers her eyes flicking back and forth between his rod and her servant, "Shall I emasculate him?"

"Whatever you wish master... he will not live long enough to notice anyway." She shrugged trying to keep her expression, expressionless.

"True," she shrugged, "oh to be a fly on the wall when Enki's vessel is forced to identify him. Those two have been thorns in my side for millennia," she turned to her servant, "You have no idea how long I've been looking for them," she sneered dropping the used bit of flesh and sliding up the slab until she was gazing into Sam's delirious countenance.

"I knew you were special with all the extra attention Azazel gave you, the way he doted on you, watched after you, forged the path of you life... but I hadn't really dared to hope that _you_ could be the King." She snickered drawing a blood soaked finger down his cheek, the sharpened nail slicing keenly into just the topmost layers of his skin, she wanted him recognizable after all. "I merely thought you a pawn in his plans to unleash the denizens of hell, or maybe even a possible vessel for Lucifer himself... but this..." she licked her lips smiling as his head turned toward her, his glassy eyes staring into hers.

She leaned in close, her lips millimeters away from his, "You have fathered the murderer of the world. Your..." she stopped and cocked her head to the side grinning brightly while cupping his cheek, adoring his frown of confusion, "do you consider him your father or your brother after all that's come to pass? Either way..." she shrugged, "his child has been slain and ours will rule the heavens and the earth. You will be worshipped forever, revered as the sire whose son destroyed the human plague." She leaned forward pressing her mouth to his, stroking his lips with her tongue and caressing his face as a searing desert wind swirled blasting into the tunnel leading to the cave.

"No!" her teeth tore his lip as her head snapped up, "Imdugud."

A battering ram of heat and debris preceded a roaring cacophony that seemed to roll like thunder into the entryway, "Kill him!" She ordered retreating toward the rear of the cave and another hidden way out as the front entrance was filled with a deafening swarm of locust.

"LAMAAAAAASHTUUUUU!" His call grew more solid as did he upon arriving within the cave and quickly assessing the situation. "Where is she!" he demanded of the Asag who nodded toward a darkened corner.

His eyes flicked over Sam's inert form and he winced at the bloody evidence of the torture his fragile human body had endured. He turned stalking toward the cowering demon until she was backed into a corner trembling before his rage, "Minister to him... if he dies I will suck the marrow from your bones and bathe in your blood is that understood!?"

Hastily and wordlessly she nodded scooting around him toward the pallet where she quickly set about untying the young man.

OOooOO

"That's damned clever, gotta give that fellah points for originality," Bobby shook his head still torn between being furious with the Assyrian demi-god and being grateful for his allegiance to the boys.

"Ain't that the truth," Dean nodded pointing to a right side bend in the line of buzzing hovering locust. Once they passed by a group, the insects left behind darted off most likely to return to their master, "up there." he pointed at a small shadow in the base of a hillock once they finished rounding the bend. "Sammy!" he called lurching forward, maintaining his grip on the pole with his left hand while his right raised up the shotgun.

"Dean!" Bobby reached forward and frowned with surprise when he came up empty handed. He hadn't expected the young man to be able to move that fast in his condition. _Never underestimate the speed of a freaked out Winchester._ "Damnit boy!" he snarled as the ground shook with a percussive blast that belched rock dust, smoke and soot out of the mouth of the hole.

The force of the explosion threw Dean back towards him, the young man landing on his back and skidding several yards. Bobby ran forward sliding on his knees to intercept him, pulling his jacket up and over them both as he covered the young man, protecting him with his own body while earth rained down on them.

OOooOO

tbc.

Please R&R. I'm honored to hear from you.

Thanks.

sifi


	10. Chapter 10

Pipeline chpt

Pipeline chpt. – 7

by: sifi.

OOooOO

Dean fixed his grip on the kid's jacket and picked him back up to eye level, not that his eyes were open.

"C'mon you little shit... Open those eyes or so help me god I'm gonna cut the fucking lids off!" he snarled in spite of the shiver that ran down his back. He never thought he'd be the one uttering that particular threat, in fact the memories that came with it made his balls shrink.

At least the threat got the kid to try and focus on him, "Where's Partyman?"

"Hmm, never know till y'know y'know..." his head rolled forward, his eyes closing and his wasted frame sagging in the foggy alley as a wave of white foamy saliva spilled over his bottom lip to tumble down his naked chest.

"Fuckin' tweaker..." Dean slid his arm around the kid who couldn't have been more than sixteen and started to walk him back into the only 6 a.m. club in town. An instant later he thought better of it and eased him to the ground patting down his pockets.

He came up with a handful of crumpled papers, a cell phone and a handful of slightly moist twenty dollar bills.

"Man I so do NOT want to know where this came from," he grumbled pocketing it all then ran inside where the bouncer sized him up hungrily.

Dean clapped the man on the shoulder, "No time for that now handsome, there's a kid outside looks like he needs an ambulance. Can't be more than sixteen..." he smiled, "Won't be good for business y'know?"

The bouncer grumbled but nodded his understanding and turned, then glanced back watching Dean walk out of the club.

Once outside he jogged toward the corner of the building and the lonely little spotlight he'd need to look at the papers. There wasn't time to go back to the motel or even back to the hospital.

Unless he found this sick-o "Partyman" and was able to trace Pipeline back to its source he was gonna lose his little brother. And after everything they'd been through, no way in hell was he gonna let that happen, let alone to some supernatural street drug. _I knew I didn't like this gig._

His eyes flicked up and he ran back inside bringing smoldering light to the bouncer's hungry gaze.

"Still no time for that..." he patted the man's arm and held out the flyer, "I promise I'll make it worth your while though if you help me out here..."

"Aren't you a little old for raving?" the bear of a man asked with a cocked eyebrow.

Dean shook his head, _I don't have time for this shit!_ "It's not like that... my boy got jacked up on that pipeline crap that's goin' around and if I can't find out what's in it he's..." he shook his head unable to voice the possibility, "Please... where's it at?"

Reading the desperation in the elder Winchester's face the bear took the flyer and angled it under a black light used to reveal the hand stamps for the club. He over wrote the location specifics with a pen and handed the paper back to Dean then towering over him by a solid six inches marched him outside with a surprisingly gentle hand on his neck and pointed him in the right direction.

"Warehouse district it's just a few miles south and about two east," he smiled softly then ruffed Dean's hair, "Go get your boy healthy then come back, we'll have a three-way, make a night of it."

"Thanks," Dean shook the guy's hand, his cheeks blazing bright pink as he ran to the Impala and tore down the street.

OOooOO

He knew the tattered miner's shack was empty the instant he turned the car onto the dirt road leading up to it. The megalomaniac who called himself 'Partyman' had genuinely thought he was giving Dean good information and though it only took a few knuckle busting Winchester punches to persuade the late twenty-something 'entrepreneur' to give up the location, it was still too late. The source of the drug had moved on.

"Son of a BITCH!" he yelled smacking the dash as the car slid to a halt on the loose dust of the road. He popped a round into the chamber of his .45, checked the safety and slid it into the back of his pants before sidling up to the rough pine board wall and making his way to the window for a peek inside.

Just as he knew it would be, the single room shack was empty and conspicuously clean though a strange metallic scent, very much like the taste of the drug hung in the air. Frustrated beyond belief he swung the flashlight around the room, a glint catching on something under the legs of the wood burning stove.

Checking the shack again, searching the shadows once more he crouched and grasped the wad of paper noting a faint wave of residual warmth emanating from the iron. _Wasn't long ago at all they were still here... son of a BITCH!_ he scowled shutting off the flashlight and tucking it under his arm while he moved to the window, uncrumpling the bit of paper.

_It's a piece of a map,_ he realized noting a partial circle in red just about twenty miles east of their current location in New Castle. _Well ain't that just... spooky..._ he frowned noting the area that had been circled, _Lawrence. Too easy, waaay too easy and way too obvious. It's gotta be a trap... but why? And more importantly... what? Or would that be who?_

He literally jumped and gasped when his phone went off in his pocket, "Yeah?" He answered breathlessly.

"Dean?"

"Sam? Is that you?"

"Yeah, s'me..." the young man's voice came tiredly through.

"Oh man I am so glad to hear your voice... are you okay? What's goin' on?"

"Mmm tired Dean," he breathed sleepily, "had a vision... they're gone, whoever it is... they went to Lawrence... s'gonna be a near full moon when someone gets torn up there."

"Hold on," Dean touched the screen on his phone accessing the calendar and lunar phases, "Full moons' in four days Sam, how are you? Do you feel okay?"

"No, feel like hell... my head is pounding... gonna sleep Dean." He seemed to sigh just before the line went dead with a clumsy clatter.

"Sam?" He called then sighed, "Alright alright... I'm comin' just get some rest little brother, I'll be there when you wake up." His fist curled around the piece of map as he turned scanning the shack one more time then left to head back into town, back to his brother grateful for this reprieve in spite of the nagging fear for what was yet to come, chewing on the back of his brain.

OOooOO

"Agent Harrison I have been more than considerate of yours and your partner's needs but there is no way in clear conscience that I can allow you to take him out of this hospital!" Dr. Indiri ranted behind the closed door of the family conference room.

"I know that and you're right, but whoever's behind this stuff has MOVED ON! They're not here and they're going to bring this poison to another town if _WE_ don't stop them!" Dean tried to reason then wondered why he was bothering. Two years ago he would have had Sam slip out in the dark of night and just picked him up at the side of the building but at least this time, there was more to consider than a stealthy get-away. From what the doctor had told him, Sam was going to need small doses of the anti-venin at regular intervals to keep him conscious and his synapses in tact and without the doctor's code or cooperation, he wasn't going to get what he needed.

"He's already signed the AMA papers doc... we have to stop this," Dean pulled out his own version of Sam's pleading puppy-dog eyes, "Please help us do that." and leaned ruthlessly on his sensitivities.

OOooOO

"right there?" Dean asked gingerly bouncing his fingertip against the vaguely rubbery feeling vein in the front of Sam's elbow.

"That's right." Dr. Indiri nodded smiling faintly.

"How far?" he asked.

"Just puncture the vein not more than couple millimeters... thankfully he has good vascularity."

"Don't worry Dean," Sam smiled tiredly, "I'll keep it under control."

"Darn right you will," the older man nodded and pocketed the two vials the doctor gave him, "Is this gonna be enough?"

"If it's not..." Dr. Indiri stopped himself and sighed, "most major hospitals will have a vial or two of it in stock." He turned to Sam, "You Agent Fischer are to take things very easy, NO exertion, NO undue stress, nothing that's going to elevate your blood pressure or raise your heart rate more than a walk down the hall do you understand?"

Both men nodded but the confusion on their faces called for a deeper explanation, "Whatever Pipeline's active agent is, it seems to metabolize the anti-venin rapidly enough, if you over-exert yourself you'll speed THAT process up maybe even to the point where it won't help at all..." he looked between them, "Now do you understand?"

The brothers nodded, their understanding just as visible as their confusion had been as they shook hands with the doctor and slid their jackets on.

"As soon as we find the antidote we'll be in touch," Dean promised and angled his little brother out the door and down the hall.

OOooOO

Lawrence, Pa.

"Dean?" Sam muttered rolling over in his bed, his eyes latching onto the silhouette of his big brother sitting at the desk outlined by the blue light of the computer screen.

"Yeah?" his head snapped up, "You okay?"

"I'm okay."

"What do you need Sam?" He turned to face the younger man.

"I need you to get some rest, we'll start tracking it down in the morning." He yawned and watched his brother carefully.

Dean didn't return his attention back to the computer screen, he didn't turn away and he didn't argue. He just sat there his eyes locked on Sam until the younger man sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

"What is it Dean?"

"Right." He shrugged listlessly.

"What?"

"You're right, I know you are but I can't."

"You're exhausted, just as much as I am." Sam protested softly.

"Yeah but... I can't shut off, can't stop thinking... is this the way it _always_ is inside your head?" he asked.

Sam cocked his head to the side and made his way to the table unsteadily, "What do you mean?"

"I mean that shit's real Sam, what it does... its all real."

Slowly the younger man nodded, "Yeah." He sat beside his brother, "It's not the first time I've been inside your head. Did you know that?"

"No." Dean shook his head.

"It doesn't surprise you though," Sam smiled and sipped from the pint on the table.

"No."

Sam's easy smile spread into a deep grin that echoed the origin of those mile deep dimples, "Explains a lot though."

Taking his turn sipping from the pint he grinned back at his baby brother.

"Your mind... it's..." they spoke together.

"Surprisingly organized." Sam said.

"Surprisingly disorganized." Dean chuckled.

Whether it was the late hour, the recent emotional trials and tribulations, or just a moment in time between brothers a simple 'prffft' grew into a low chuckle that deepened the dimples in one and brightened the eyes of the other. Moments later each of John's boys found themselves trying to escape the laughter by stumbling around the room. Occasionally they latched onto one another before falling dizzily and clutching their stomachs on one of the beds, sighing away the giggles until they sat side by side on the floor, leaning back, and still unable to look at one another without setting off another round of laughter.

Some time not long after, neither of them knew exactly when, the Winchester brothers drifted off to sleep.

OOooOO

Twenty-Three Hours Later.

"B.P's 88 over 50 and falling... pulse is at 190 thready and fading fast. He lost a TON of blood."

Light stabbed him in the eyes one at a time sending shockwaves into his brain in spite of the fuzzy gray haze that looked like it was erasing the world. Some of that gray, the darker patches even seemed to be circling over head like vultures.

Sound rumbled somewhere in the distance, voices vibrating through him, maybe even through his very molecules. There was something sliding around behind the eraser marks in his vision and he thought maybe it was the world but for the moment he couldn't be sure.

Red suddenly spotted his vision and the rumbling noises took on tone. One of those tones was directed at him, _kinda close_.

_Sam... please find my brother... _

"What the hell did this? Did something escape from the zoo?" the ER attending demanded of the EMTs.

The eraser marks over the world grew darker and on his left a single constant note began to sound.

"He's crashing!"

OOooOO

"Mmm, unnnnh.... pl...s," he pushed tremulously at the gloves his brother's blood had made over his arms, "D... nuh..." he couldn't breathe. Air didn't seem to want to move into or out of his body. He shook his head violently, sweat and blood soaked hair slapping against his head, it couldn't be true, it just couldn't.

His heart felt like it was going to explode it was beating so fast, his vision swam and he would've sworn flames were licking his whole body. He could even see the piercing lances of light as if someone was shining them into his own eyes. They hurt his brain.

His head wanted to explode, the pressure was blinding and deafening, and he could have sworn he could feel the sutures of his skull moving, trying to give his brain room to breathe.

His chest quivered and the breath stopped in his throat as the world blinked out of existence.

_DEAN!... what have I done?_

OOooOO

End.

Madness – chpt 10.

by: sifi

OOooOO

CURRENT.

"SAMMY!" Dean screamed shoving and beating at Bobby's restraint.

"Dean No!"

"NO NO NO! Lemme Go!" he hollered pushing and shoving at the older man until he'd squirmed free of his grip and was soon to erupt from beneath the jacket.

"Dean! Damnit boy!" Bobby lurched and tackled him as gently as possible. He winced feeling Dean groan and his breath hitch under his weight. Fear pounded even harder when Dean's breathing stopped, halted for a few seconds by whatever pain he was feeling. "Wait damnit!" Bobby commanded into his ear.

"Bobby!" Dean cried helplessly as the debris finished falling and the older man raised himself up.

"Are you alright? Lemme look at you..."

Dean shook his head, his movements molasses slow as he raised himself up to all fours, shaking his head and searching for a crack or a break in the rock wall that had sealed the entrance to the cave.

"Sam..." he breathed sweeping sweat and dirt off his face then with Bobbys' help got to his feet.

"Can you feel him?"

"Help me Bobby, we gotta get to him." Half bent over he moved toward the entrance.

"Can you still _feel_ him Dean?" Bobby asked holding the younger man tightly to him, giving him the support he needed.

John's eldest shook his head, "I don't know... I can't... I ..." his gaze measured the volume of rock and rubble. He broke from Bobby's grip, planning his foot and hand holds and ground his teeth against the pulling of bundles of stitches as he reached up. Blood seeped into the dressing in a few places from the couple tumbles he'd taken, his exertion and the tackle as gentle as it had been.

A band of tan moved off to the side as Bobby grabbed Dean, "Dean! Damnit boy listen to me!" pulling him gently off the rocks until they stood eye to eye. "LISTEN..." he raised his arm pointing at the hovering bundle of insects, "Look. Maybe there's another entrance."

Drawing a shaky breath Dean nodded and tried to keep it together even going so far as to try and reach out with his mind to see if he could feel Sam while they followed the demi-god's denizens around toward the far side of the foothill.

OOooOO

The first thing he noticed was pain. There wasn't part of his body that didn't hurt, from his throat all the way to his toenails and up to his hair. The next thing he noticed was a presence.

The air was dry and dusty crawling into his throat making him want to cough but he just didn't have the energy for it. Slowly his eyelids started to lift but the orange and black dancing glow he expected wasn't present.

"Wake up now... you need to start to move..."

"Mmmnean?" he groaned frowning as his gaze fixed on a flash of white hovering above him.

"Mmm?" slowly angles and curves began to re-order themselves into a nightmare visage that brought him fully awake. "Guh!"

"It is I my King... Imdugud," the creature, in its natural form, its countenance a jagged sinister rabid canine with knife filled jaws of serrated fangs, hovered inches from his face.

"Mmmdugud?" he pushed himself with horrible difficulty onto his elbows grateful and relieved that his hands were no longer bound though his wrists burned.

"Yes. Your father and mentor are outside..." his gaze rolled upward leading Sam's there as well toward the ceiling where his great stony wings were spread above the slab on which he lay, rocks and rubble sliding over the edges intermittently, "you need to finish untying yourself, I'm afraid the Asag won't have an opportunity." He motioned somewhere toward the foot of the pallet where presumably the creature was at the very least, incapacitated.

Working hard to shake off the effects of the venom Sam sat up noting the Assyrian was holding his wings up with his hands now as sweat rolled down its huge body.

"S'my clothes?" Sam grumbled fumbling with the ties around his ankles.

"We have more dire concerns my King." He grunted.

"Wh...what happened? There was someone... a woman...oh God..." he groaned as it started coming back to him and he rolled from the pallet onto his knees then pressed his hands to his chest and belly, hoping to feel that his insides were still inside where they belonged.

"Lamashtu." that canine head nodded as Sam pulled himself to his feet.

"Lilith to us right? They're one and the same?" Sam asked half twisted over his own feet, his hands clutching tight to the shoulder harnesses of the creature's breast plate. His eyes slid up until his neck was craning as his face turned down in horror, "My God she's pregnant."

That rabid dog face nodded in the dark and in spite of its ferocity managed to look sorrowful, "It is." His arms trembled under the weight of the cave roof and the strain told on his face, "My King... hold tight to me."

Understanding crossed Sam's features as he pulled himself firmly against the enormous creature and felt him tremble as his arms and wings collapsed, both wrapping around the fragile human body and leaning forward until the man was on the ground with the ancient one bowed over him, a living umbrella on hands and knees his wings at rest on the floor but still extended and providing protection.

"That's better," Imdugud grunted, fighting the pummeling of the cave's roof falling around them.

"We're buried alive... how is that better?" Sam asked.

"We're alive." The Assyrian grimaced, "And if I know my King he will most certainly move earth to get to you."

"At the very least," Sam nodded then cocked his head to the side, "has it stopped falling?"

The demi-god nodded, his teeth gritting hard and his jaw muscle jumping, "I believe so." Slowly he turned his head, the upper elbow joint of his wing flicking back to throw off some dust and debris and giving him a chance to peer out into the blackness.

OOooOO

"Sam..." Dean breathed, his fingers and forearms aching as he clutched into the hill with one hand while the other grasped at rocks and small boulders sweeping them out of the cave entrance on the left side while Bobby worked on the right.

Occasionally a locust or two would dart into the slowly deepening opening, how long it took to return would tell him that they hadn't yet broken through to any main chamber.

_They have to be safe, Imdugud has to be in there with him or else they wouldn't still be here... he'll protect Sam..._

"Dean." Bobby frowned then tossed a small bit of twisted black metal to him.

He nodded recognizing the trigger clamp from a grenade almost instantly. "You think she did it?"

"Well it definitely wasn't a natural occurrence."

"Why? She has what she wanted..." he shook his head biting his lips to keep his fears inside then noting the older hunter's 'are you kidding?' expression nodded, "I know. We get distracted, she gets away clean." He took a deep breath and nodded sweeping an armful of smaller stones and dirt out of the widening hole, "I'm gonna kill her Bobby."

"Get in line kid," the older man snarled nearing the end of his rope with these ancient creatures and the ways they were intent to screw up the boys' lives. _Oh hell there's that too... do I tell him?_ he wondered fleetingly as his newest knowledge raced through his head again, _not right now. Save Sam first. Damn that son of a bitch for telling me!_

OOooOO

"I'm afraid you don't have any choice if you wish to survive. Her poison will liquefy you from the inside out... I can see the pain on your face and your wounds are not only refusing to heal but they are bleeding even more as time passes." Imdugud frowned over his shoulder while both his hands and wings dug and swept through rubble, seeking the body of the Asag.

"I don't know if I'll be able to keep it down... I already feel like throwing up." Sam panted.

"Then I will partially digest it and feed it to you."

Sam crawled around to the far side of the pallet where moments later wet splatter told the Assyrian all he needed to know. "...'anks for that..." Sam panted flopping onto the ground and groaning, "We should be trying to dig out."

"Hopefully by the time I have tended to your vessel's health we'll know from which way they are approaching and I'll be able to make it go more quickly."

Slowly, haltingly Sam clawed his way back to the creature, blood sliding in thickening ropes from the tears Lilith had made in his skin, "Anti-venin..." he muttered setting his hands on a pile of debris to Imdugud's right. "Why are you doing this?" He asked, "You were born to do evil, drought, pestilence..." he shook his head his face twisted in confusion, barely able to remember to dig let alone what they were looking for.

"All creatures exist in balance my King you know this. If the balance falters the world falls." His clawed hand fell on something soft, "I think I've found her." He grinned then quickly frowned as Sam slid down to the cave floor with dark ribbons of blood painting his lower face.

"Oh good..." he breathed faintly.

"My King?" Imdugud reached out with his right hand, cupping Sam's jaw while his left gave a series of sharp yanks on whatever bit of the Asag it held until part of the limb snapped and he was able to rip it free.

Working quickly he dug one of his talons under the skin, his aim to slice and tear and come as close to pureeing the muscle inside as possible. When he could draw his finger out of the end of the limb and feel it covered in tiny, almost gelatinous bits of meat he moved to where Sam lay. A moment later, folded back inside his host he picked up the young hunter's torso and held it against his chest.

"Sam... c'mon Sam open your eyes... you have to eat this."

But the boy's head rolled from side to side against him, "Fine we'll do this the hard way," he sighed. Scooping out an egg sized glob of meat from the fleshy glove he pried Sam's mouth open and swept the bolus inside then held it shut and squeezed his nose closed too, forcing him to swallow before he'd be allowed to draw another breath.

The practice worked and a moment later Sam leaned gasping against Imdugud's chest, breathing through his mouth and fighting the urge to throw up.

"Just a little more," the demi-god scooped up another egg sized glob.

"Nuh... no more..."

"Listen to me, her own flesh is the only antidote to the poison." He explained again then once more pried the young Winchester's mouth open and slid the meat inside, holding him closed again until he swallowed.

"...gonna puke," Sam groaned.

"Breathe through your mouth and rest a moment," he dragged down one of the skins from the pallet and draped it over the young man, "I'll return shortly I think I hear something."

Sam grunted and was out again while Imdugud made his way toward the rear of the cave, exactly where he'd been heading when the explosions went off forcing him back inside.

OOooOO

"Dean get back!" Bobby urged grabbing the young man by the scruff of the neck and hauling him off the pulsing pile of rubble. "Get your gun up!" He ordered knowing something was coming through the wall, just not sure what or who.

They stood several yards away as the rocky bits of earth that sealed the entrance seemed to unzip from the top down, enormous stony talons parting the way as one parts a curtain.

"Imdugud!" Dean breathed and lurched forward, never before considering that he'd be grateful perhaps even delighted to see that rabid looking canine demon's face. The demi-god gave a nod then turned back toward the darkness while Bobby's hand remained firmly latched to the back of Dean's jacket.

When the Assyrian turned back again and the light hit him once more he had Sam wrapped in something dark and cradled easily in his arms.

"No..." Dean breathed shrugging out of the jacket and racing toward the huge creature.

"He is alive." Imdugud announced quickly, carrying the unconscious man off to a soft looking grassy spot near the tree line where he lowered himself to his knees but did not put the boy down.

"Sam..." Dean knelt, looking into that filthy, bloody and scratched up face. He swept a shank of hair from his little brother's eyes as a jagged tear near his neck caught his attention. Frowning he turned back the flaps of hide following the rends and filling his sight with filthy, dirt and blood caked ribbons of flesh.

"I was able to feed him some of the antidote for the Asag's poison," he pulled something from his waistband and handed the severed lower leg to Bobby, "He may require more."

"Uh..." Bobby grimaced holding the limb and frowning at the feel of it, it felt like ground meat inside a balloon, not at all what he'd expect.

"The flesh of the creature is the only cure for its poison." He explained.

"Oh," Bobby nodded, "Eeew."

Dean shook his head, his eyes fixed on the vicious slashes in his boy's body, tracing them, assessing the damage and recalling how it felt when his own flesh had been tearing like that, in almost exactly the same pattern too.

"Where are his clothes?" he asked blushing deeply when he realized the younger man was naked beneath the hide.

"This is how I found him." Imdugud shrugged then looked between Dean and Bobby, "Lamashtu has succeeded. It IS pregnant from his seed. He knows this." He nodded and rose to his feet, the care with which he cradled the youngest Winchester at extreme odds with the hatred blazing on his face, "The child can NOT be allowed to be born."

"What kind of time frame are we looking at here? Is she gonna have some super demonic speedy gestation or something?"

"She should be bound by the limits of her host... eight to nine months," he sighed and began walking, carrying Sam back toward the car with Dean and Bobby beside him, "The sooner the better though...I will begin the hunt immediately."

Dean stopped and turned the demi-god to face him, "Where do you think she'll go?"

"I don't know," he shook his head, "but one thing is almost certain my King," a slow and sinister smile full of violent promise warped those canine features, "I do not believe she will leave the host now that she has what she wants, and if that is indeed the case, it may be our best chance to kill her as well as the spawn."

In the creature's arms, Sam's head tossed to the side and his brows furrowed while a sound of denial touched the air.

Dean ran his hand over Sam's forehead, "It's alright little bro, I'm sorry Sam, but this isn't how you'd wanna be a daddy anyway."

To the side Bobby's breath hitched and he pinched mist from the corners of his eyes, his lips pressed so tightly they were hidden by his beard and moustache, he glanced at Imdugud for a second before his eyes darted away and he gave a faint shake of the head.

The Assyrian's almost imperceptible nod was all the acknowledgement he needed.

The exchange went unnoticed by either Winchester.

"Come now... he needs medical attention," Imdugud nodded and continued his trek to the car wondering at how good it felt to walk freely in his natural form and wondering on a deeper level what would come of these two vessels of kings when all the facts were laid out. He knew it would happen sooner or later and in spite of his own origins, his own purpose, he liked these humans, and his allegiance to the divinities they housed was something he'd never wish to change. _Over five thousand years... I must be getting soft in my old age._

"What're you gonna do if you find her?" Dean asked once Sam was safely deposited in the back seat.

That dark and sinister smile stretched the creature's mouth once more and lit his eyes with foul promise, "Truly it is better if you do not know my King... but rest assured, when I find her and have killed them both you will be the first to hear." The demon of the Southern Winds glanced at the youngest Winchester, "What are you going to tell him?"

Dean frowned but nodded, "The truth." He shrugged looking from Imdugud to Bobby, "No matter how much it hurts... if it was me? I'd want to know."

OOooOO

EPILOGUE

The brush of his little brother's hand against his forearm brought Dean fully awake. He stretched a deep kink out of his back and leaned forward peering into the younger man's face.

"Hey." Sam greeted with a sleepy and tremulous smile.

"Hey," Dean nodded feeling the bulky puffiness of his eyelids and hoping his brother wouldn't notice. "Welcome back."

"Mmm."

Dean watched the young man's mouth bow downward, his lips trembling as his eyes started to leak.

"She told me you were dead... tried to make me believe it... knew she was lying."

"You're okay..." Dean thumbed a break in the silvery stream, "it's over."

"No..." he shook his head, "It's not... I almost killed you Dean."

"It wasn't you Sam."

The youngest Winchester nodded, "It was _my_ power... I couldn't stop her... and those kids... in the park... in the car..." he shook his head, "there was nothing..." _helpless, I was completely helpless... and how do I tell you the rest Dean? How do I tell you what she did? What she stole from you?_

"Listen to me Sam, it's not your fault, YOU didn't do those things... you were used... turned into a tool. She jacked into your powers with her poison and used them to do those things to those people," He angled his little brother's face until they were eye to eye, "YOU didn't do those things. YOU didn't hurt anyone, YOU didn't whip those kids into a homicidal frenzy it was HER poison that did that. It wasn't just your body she was fuckin' with Sammy, she wanted you to believe you did those things, that _you_ made those people go nuts... that you killed me... but I'm not dead little brother I'm right here and I'm _not_ goin' anywhere."

The sweet oblivion of drug induced sleep was calling to the young man, drawing him out of the light and into the warm dark cocoon of nothingness. Slowly he shook his head, his leaden lids falling closed again, "S'not the worst Dean... there's more she did..." his voice faded into his inner darkness as Dean leaned back scrubbing his face with his hands.

"I know Sam... I know everything she did." He whispered pawing his own tears away.

Just outside the door Bobby drew a steadying breath and backed away, giving the older man a few minutes to get himself together. There'd be time to come up with a plan later.

OOooOO

End.

Please R&R. I am always honored to hear opinions and constructive criticism.

Thank You.

sifi.


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